If you import to Shuwaikh or Shuaiba from Europe or the Far East, the route your container takes this month is genuinely uncertain. After a Houthi pause that started in late 2025 — and the first cautious returns of CMA CGM and Maersk vessels to the Suez Canal in December and January — Houthi-controlled Yemen warned on 28 February it would resume attacks on commercial shipping, and several lines pulled their southbound bookings back around the Cape. As of early May, Suez Canal transits are still running roughly 60% below 2023 levels. That has direct, measurable consequences for Kuwait-bound cargo.
Here's what the picture actually looks like right now, and what to do about it this week.
What's changed in the route
Before late 2023, almost every Asia–Europe and Europe–Gulf box vessel transited Bab el-Mandeb and the Suez Canal. From early 2024 through most of 2025, the majority diverted around the Cape of Good Hope, adding 10–14 days each way. From November 2025 onwards, war-risk premiums collapsed (~$50–100 per TEU now, versus $200–400 per TEU at the 2024 peak) and container lines started testing the canal again. Maersk Sebarok was the first Maersk box ship to transit since early 2024, on 19 December 2025, and CMA CGM's MEDEX and INDAMEX loops returned to Suez routings in January 2026.
The 28 February resumption-of-attacks announcement cooled that progress. Container shipping Q4 2025 transits were still 86% below 2023, and that figure is widening again, not narrowing.
The takeaway: at any given moment in 2026, half your booking is going one way and half the other — and the carrier may switch routings between the time you confirm the booking and the time the box loads.
What it means for Kuwait specifically
Kuwait isn't routed through Bab el-Mandeb directly — Shuwaikh and Shuaiba are reached via the Strait of Hormuz. But almost every European import to Kuwait moves either (a) on a mainliner that touches Jebel Ali, or (b) on a feeder ex-Salalah, Khor Fakkan, or Jebel Ali after a mainline transhipment. When the mainline reroutes Cape-around, every step downstream gets longer and less reliable.
Concrete numbers we are seeing on customer bookings right now:
- Rotterdam / Antwerp → Shuwaikh. Pre-crisis, port-to-port 15–25 days. Cape routing extends this to roughly 28–38 days with the Jebel Ali transhipment. Suez routing gets it back into the 20–25 day band. A booking made today could land on either depending on the carrier vessel-by-vessel decision.
- Shanghai / Ningbo → Shuwaikh. Pre-crisis 26–38 days. Asia–Gulf doesn't transit Suez, so the direct lane is unaffected — but space on Asia–Gulf feeders has tightened in early 2026 because some mainline Asia–Europe vessels that had been repositioned around Africa are being pulled back to Suez loops, reducing the slack that was helping Asia–Gulf in 2025.
- War-risk surcharges. Most carriers serving the Gulf still apply a Gulf of Aden / Red Sea surcharge of roughly $50–100 per TEU on European imports that route via Suez. It's listed separately on the rate sheet — check it before you sign.
Schedule reliability is the real cost
The published transit time on a carrier schedule is now noticeably less informative than the route the box actually takes. Vessel skip-calls — where a vessel omits a port to claw back schedule — have been more frequent on Asia–Gulf and Med–Gulf loops since 2024. For a Kuwait importer, a skipped Jebel Ali call typically adds 7 days to the door arrival as the box waits for the next feeder.
If your customer expects an exact landed-by date — perishables, retail seasonal, project deadlines — pad the buffer by 7–10 days versus the carrier quote, or pay for an air premium on the latest 5–10% of the volume to absorb the slippage.
What to do this week
- Re-quote any FCL booking made before December 2025. Carriers reset their long-term contract rates twice in Q4 2025 / Q1 2026 as the routing picture changed. Old quotes are leaving margin on the table — in either direction.
- Get the route in writing. Ask the carrier explicitly: "Is this booking confirmed via Suez or via Cape?" The answer can change per-sailing. Bookings made on a Suez assumption that flip to Cape will arrive 10+ days late.
- Check the war-risk surcharge line. It should be $50–100 per TEU on European imports, not the $200–400 per TEU figure that was current in 2024. If the surcharge looks high, push back.
- For time-critical loads, evaluate an air-sea split. From Europe and Turkey, KWI air freight at 2–4 days versus 28–38 day Cape sea freight is sometimes the cheaper total cost when you factor inventory holding and stockout risk.
- Track to a tracking number, not a schedule. Use the carrier vessel-tracking page (or a free tool like VesselFinder) to verify the actual route, not the pencilled-in ETA.
The Red Sea picture will keep moving for the rest of 2026. The right answer for any single shipment depends on the lane, the carrier, the cargo, and the deadline. If you want a current view on a specific route, send the origin/destination and we'll come back with a quote and the carrier's current routing assumption attached.
Need help with a Kuwait import that's been affected by Red Sea routing? Get a quote in under 2 hours: qafxpress.com.
Sources
- BIMCO, "Suez Canal transits still 60% down 100 days after the last Houthi attack" — bimco.org/news-insights/market-analysis (accessed 2026-05-06)
- Xeneta, "Red Sea Return: What It Means for 2026 Container Shipping Contract Rates" — xeneta.com/blog (accessed 2026-05-06)
- Splash 247, "Shipping hesitates on Red Sea return" — splash247.com (accessed 2026-05-06)
- Container News, "The Return of Container Shipping to the Red Sea" — container-news.com (accessed 2026-05-06)