Red Sea Reopening: Why a “Return to Normal” Won’t Be Immediate.

A new Sea-Intelligence analysis confirms that even if the Red Sea corridor reopens in full, the global container network will not snap back to normal overnight. Months of diversion via the Cape of Good Hope have structurally distorted sailing schedules, vessel rotations, and capacity placement - and those effects will take time to unwind.

Key Findings

1. Network disruption is already deeply embedded

The crisis didn’t just delay transits - it rewired service patterns. Vessel timing, port rotation sequencing, and equipment flow are now operating on a completely different rhythm than pre-crisis.

2. Capacity is still artificially stretched

Carriers deployed additional vessels simply to keep weekly coverage while sailing the longer Cape route. A reopening does not make those extra ships “instantly available” - they must first be repositioned and re-timed into old rotations.

3. Congestion risk during the transition

Once routing switches back through the Red Sea, there will be a phasing period where vessels bunch, schedules misalign, and port calls compress. In other words, there is likely to be new congestion before stability returns.

4. Recovery will be measured in months, not weeks

Sea-Intelligence emphasises that synchronising global networks is a slow rebuild. The reopening is the start of normalisation - not the end of disruption.

The Takeaway

A reopened corridor is good news - but it will not create instant relief. The industry should expect a long stabilisation curve as carriers gradually rebalance rotations, redeploy tonnage, and unwind months of network distortion. In short, the “green light” moment is only phase one. Real recovery sits further down the timeline.

Sources: Sea Intelligence