MSC opens Antwerp to Aqaba express to skirt Hormuz shutdown

Mediterranean Shipping Company has launched a new Europe to Red Sea container service designed to keep European cargo flowing to Gulf markets without transit through the Strait of Hormuz, in the clearest sign yet that liner operators are rewiring their networks around the Iranian chokepoint.

The first vessel on the Europe, Red Sea and Middle East Express sailed from Antwerp on 10 May under voyage OC619 A, the Geneva-based carrier confirmed. The eastbound rotation calls at Gdansk, Klaipeda, Bremerhaven, Antwerp, Valencia, Barcelona and Gioia Tauro before crossing to Abu Kir, King Abdullah, Jeddah and Aqaba.

According to analyst Linerlytica, the service operates on a single direction using ships of 14,000 to 16,000 TEU that switch in and out of the MSC network, replacing a truncated West Med to Red Sea loop. Containers bound for Gulf buyers will be discharged at Red Sea ports and moved inland across Saudi Arabia, with final delivery handled by feeder vessels.

The new line sidesteps the Strait of Hormuz, which has been effectively restricted by Iranian measures and heightened military tensions involving the United States, with the corridor a central sticking point in talks between Tehran and Washington.

MSC said the rotation responded to growing demand under a "challenging scenario in the Middle East" and would be supported by its capillary network spanning North West Continent, Scandinavia, the Baltic, the West Med, the Adriatic, the East Med and the Black Sea, giving exporters from Rotterdam to Constanța feeder access to the new corridor.

The shift lends commercial weight to Saudi Arabia's land bridge ambitions, validating Riyadh's bet that Red Sea ports can absorb cargo otherwise dependent on Gulf gateways. For European shippers, the trade-off is longer onward delivery times set against war-risk insurance and security cover that brokers have been pricing sharply higher since the start of the year.