Supply Chain Action Points
Read this first — the conclusion, and the moves to make:
- Contract routing per sailing rather than per season for Q4 Asia-Europe volume: require each booking confirmation to state Suez or Cape routing and the contracted transit time, and dispute quotes that exceed the stated routing by more than 7 days.
- Run the routing comparison per sailing with your own numbers: at a 10% annual carrying cost and 30,000 dollars of cargo per FEU, twelve extra Cape days cost about 986 dollars per FEU; take the Cape option whenever the Suez all-in premium exceeds that threshold.
- Track the weekly Red Sea Brief transits against the pre-crisis baseline of roughly 453 ships a week and treat 64% as the current ceiling: only count capacity as returned when the corridor holds above 400 for two consecutive weeks.
- Monitor war-risk premium quotes weekly as the leading indicator; a sharp premium rise triggers an immediate review of open Q4 Asia-Europe bookings before the next sailing.
- Keep one Cape-routed fallback booking per month priced and available until four consecutive clean weeks are recorded, and calendar a weekly check of attack reports for the Bab el Mandeb and northern Red Sea chokepoints.
Lloyd's List Intelligence's 3 September Red Sea Brief recorded about 290 ships through the northern Red Sea chokepoint in the week of 24-30 August - roughly 30% above 2025 levels though still 36% below normal. Bab el Mandeb saw 302 transits (17-23 Aug); renewed Houthi threats have not derailed the recovery, with no attacks reported since 24 August, encouraging more carriers to resume the shorter Asia-Europe routing.
The Analysis
Lloyd's List Intelligence's Red Sea Brief for 3 September records about 290 ships through the northern Red Sea chokepoint in the week of 24 to 30 August. The headline framing is 30% above 2025 levels, and the same sentence concedes the number that matters: still 36% below normal. Divide it out and normal works out to roughly 453 ships a week, which puts the corridor at about 64% of its pre-crisis self. A recovery measured against a crisis year is a low bar, and the honest read is that the corridor is two-thirds of the way back, not all the way.
Bab el Mandeb recorded 302 transits the week before, and no attacks have been reported since 24 August. Renewed threats have not derailed the trend, and more carriers are being encouraged back onto the shorter Asia-Europe routing. The direction is real. The level is not normal, and the gap between those two statements is where Q4 planning lives.
Below, why the base effect flatters the headline, what 36% below normal means for the capacity that has actually returned, and the routing math that tells you when the longer route is the cheaper one.
Start with the arithmetic, because the brief leads with the wrong comparison. About 290 transits in the week of 24 to 30 August is 30% above 2025 levels, and 2025 was the year the corridor spent most of its time half-empty. Being 30% above a depressed base is not the same as being recovered. The same brief says the week ran 36% below normal, and that is the number with information in it. If 290 represents 64% of normal, normal works out to roughly 453 ships a week. The corridor is carrying about two-thirds of the traffic it carried before the crisis, and the missing third is the capacity that has not come back yet.
Why the trend holds is the quiet since 24 August, and quiet is the only currency this corridor trades in. Carriers do not return because a ministry says the route is safe; they return when their underwriters price the war risk at a level the schedule can absorb. No reported attacks in the second half of August is exactly the evidence those underwriters needed, and the brief notes that renewed threats have not derailed the flow. The push is bottom-up: strings re-slot one at a time as each carrier's risk committee signs off, which is why the recovery shows up as a weekly grind rather than a step change.
Who benefits, in order. Asia-Europe is first and largest: shorter routings release 10 to 14 days of steaming per voyage, and every released day is effective capacity the carrier can sell or a shipper can bank as inventory. Asia-Mediterranean follows. The equipment effect matters more than most people realise: boxes trapped on long Cape loops cycle slowly, and the corridor's partial reopening starts freeing that pool, easing the container tightness Asian exporters felt at the worst of the rerouting. Trades that never left the corridor see nothing. Direct BCOs re-contract first; spot buyers see the benefit in transit times long before they see it in rates.
Timing has a built-in lag you can plan around. The brief is a weekly snapshot with about a week of reporting lag, so the number you read in early September describes late August. Carrier re-slotting decisions trail the security picture by several weeks, because risk committees, war-risk cover and port rotations all have to line up. For Q4 bookings made in September, the practical rule is to treat the corridor as available but not yet dependable: contract the routing per sailing, not per season, and keep the Cape alternative priced until four consecutive clean weeks are on the board.
The overlooked piece is the comparison window, and it appears twice. Bab el Mandeb recorded 302 transits in the week of 17 to 23 August; the northern Red Sea count of 290 covers 24 to 30 August. Different weeks, so the two numbers are not directly comparable, and any narrative built on one falling against the other is noise. The second overlooked piece is reversibility. This recovery is a switch, not a slope: one incident reprices war risk, and a carrier that re-routed once can re-route again inside a single sailing cycle. The 30%-above-2025 headline invites you to treat the corridor as fixed. It is conditional, and the condition is one week of bad news.
The counterfactual is symmetric and fast. If an attack is reported, transits fall within days, the weekly count drops back toward crisis levels, and the carriers that just returned re-route before their next sailing. If instead the quiet holds another four to six weeks, the string count climbs toward the missing third, Asia-Europe effective capacity returns, and rates face pressure into Q4 even with peak cargo moving. The condition that decides which world you are in is not the transit count; it is the war-risk premium quote, which moves first. Track premiums weekly alongside the transits and treat a rising premium as the earlier signal.
One routing calculation to make the partial recovery actionable. Assume cargo worth 30,000 dollars per FEU and a 10% annual carrying cost; twelve extra days on the Cape route cost about 986 dollars per FEU in carrying charges alone. If the all-in Suez routing on your lane prices more than roughly 1,000 dollars per FEU above the Cape alternative, the longer route is the cheaper one once inventory is priced in. Run that comparison per sailing, not per season, because the gap between the two routings moves with the same weekly rhythm as the corridor itself.
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