Over the past two months, the blockade has also prompted shipping companies to find alternative land routes to deliver food and manufactured goods by truck, since they can no longer reach the Gulf’s coastal countries by sea. The Saudi port of Jeddah, on the Red Sea, is becoming a new regional hub, where ships from maritime giants such as MSC, CMA CGM, Maersk, and Cosco arrive via the Suez Canal.
The cargo is then transported by truck along a desert highway to destinations such as Sharjah, Bahrain, and Kuwait, which have not been served by sea in the past two months. “The port of Jeddah does not have the capacity to handle these import volumes, and a situation of port congestion is emerging,” Arthur Barillas de The, co-founder of the transport company Ovrsea, told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
According to data from Kpler Marine Traffic, on Thursday, there were 11 container ships docked in Jeddah, with nine waiting, and an average waiting time of 36 hours before unloading, compared to 17 hours recorded the previous week. Shipowners indicated that they will use three ports outside the Strait of Hormuz – Sohar in Oman, and the ports of Khorfakkan and Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates, connected by land.
The port of Aqaba, in Jordan, serves as a base for shipping goods to Baghdad and Basra, in Iraq, while a Turkish corridor also allows goods to enter northern Iraq. The situation began long before the war with Iran, but is strongly linked to the conflict.
Read more: Japan considers the passage of a Japanese oil tanker through the Strait of Hormuz a “diplomatic success”
The Red Sea detour, stretching from the Bab al-Mandeb Strait to the Suez Canal, dates back to November 19, 2023, the date of the first attack on a container ship by Iran-backed Houthi militias off the coast of Yemen, according to the industry publication CyclOpe. Route diversions have now become systematic, said Ronan Boudet, head of container intelligence at Kpler.
Ships are circumnavigating Africa along its eastern coast to the Cape of Good Hope in southern South Africa before heading north again toward Europe and the Mediterranean.
“With the current situation in the Gulf, the pressure has increased even further, and no improvement is expected in the short term,” Edouard Louis-Dreyfus, president of the French shipping group Louis Dreyfus Armateurs, told AFP. “Currently, 70% of the cargo traffic that used to pass through the Red Sea in 2023 is being rerouted via the Cape of Good Hope,” added Yves Guillo, a supply chain expert at the consulting firm Efeso in Paris.
Commercial vessel traffic around the Cape of Good Hope has more than tripled in three years, while traffic through the Bab al-Mandeb Strait has fallen to less than half, according to data from the International Monetary Fund’s PortWatch platform, based on ships’ GPS signals.
Read more: IMO calls for international support to evacuate seafarers in the Strait of Hormuz
Between March 1 and April 24 of this year, an average of 20 commercial ships rounded the Cape of Good Hope each day, compared to six during the same period in 2023. In contrast, traffic in the Red Sea dropped dramatically: from 18 daily passages through Bab al-Mandeb between March and April 2023, the average fell to five three years later.
Transit times between Asia and Europe increased, on average, by two weeks, and costs rose due to the need for 30% to 50% more fuel and 10% to 20% more ships to maintain the same service frequency, Guillo explained.
The average cost of shipping a standard 40-foot container on major routes rose 14% in April compared to the same period last year, he added, citing the Drewry freight index.
There are significant differences between routes: some African ports are seeing increases in activity. The Tangier Med Port Authority reported handling 11 million standard containers in 2025, an 8.4% increase. On the other hand, Egypt lost significant revenue from Suez Canal fees, which represent a major portion of its income. According to CyclOpe, losses in 2024 amounted to $7 billion (€5.9 billion) – a drop of more than 60% compared to 2023.
