Evergreen Books First Own-Vessel Suez Transits: Five Sailings

Evergreen has scheduled its first sailings into the Red Sea and through the Suez Canal using its own vessels, with five transits planned across November and December, according to DynaLiners. The count is small: four eastbound sailings and one westbound sailing on the Ocean Alliance's China-Europe Shuttle (CES).

The number matters more than the gesture. A single carrier committing five own-vessel transits is a test of the corridor, not a restoration of it. Evergreen has not published a timeline for rebuilding its traditional Suez-based network, and the announcement itself notes that future sailings depend on security and operational conditions across the region. That caveat is doing heavy lifting; carriers have pulled planned Red Sea returns before when conditions shifted.

What exactly has Evergreen scheduled?

Two separate programs are on the table.

The first covers the CES sailings. Ships deployed on the Ocean Alliance's China-Europe Shuttle are expected to transit the canal during November and December — four eastbound, one westbound. The asymmetry is telling. One westbound voyage against four eastbound suggests Evergreen is easing equipment and laden-cargo flows out of Asia first, while keeping the return leg exposure minimal. If the transits proceed without incident, a more balanced pattern would be the logical next step — though no such step has been announced.

The second program is a dedicated Red Sea string. Evergreen has announced four sailings connecting China with three Red Sea ports: Jeddah in Saudi Arabia, Sokhna in Egypt and Aqaba in Jordan. The carrier will market these as Ocean-Going Ad Hoc Call Red Sea, or OGRD. The label is precise: ad hoc. This is not a fixed weekly loop but a series of one-off calls, priced and scheduled voyage by voyage.

The published rotation is:

• Qingdao
• Shanghai
• Ningbo
• Shenzhen (Shekou)
• Singapore
• Jeddah
• Sokhna
• Aqaba
• Jeddah
• Port Klang
• Qingdao

Note the double call at Jeddah — inbound and outbound — and the Port Klang leg on the return to Qingdao. That routing gives Evergreen a Southeast Asia loading option on the backhaul rather than sailing home light.

Is this a full return to the Red Sea?

No, and Evergreen has not claimed it is. The announced voyages mark a limited return to the Suez and Red Sea corridor rather than a full restoration of the carrier's traditional network. That framing, reported by Container News, is the honest read of the schedule.

What is not said is equally relevant. There is no indication of how many CES vessels will actually transit versus divert if conditions change, no stated frequency for the OGRD sailings beyond the four announced, and no commitment to extend either program into next year. DynaLiners' data covers scheduled sailings; schedules can be revised before a hull enters the canal.

What does it mean for shippers and forwarders?

For China-Europe cargo owners, the immediate practical effect is limited. Five transits across two months barely dents the capacity that has been rerouted around the Cape of Good Hope since the Red Sea crisis began. But it is a pricing signal worth watching: if own-vessel Suez transits become routine, transit-time savings between Asia and North Europe feed back into spot rates and schedule reliability, pressuring the premium that longer Cape routings have implied.

For Red Sea-focused shippers — importers and exporters serving Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan — the OGRD program is more concrete. Four sailings with named ports and a published rotation give forwarders something to book against, with direct calls at Sokhna and Aqaba that avoid transshipment. The ad hoc branding, however, means no guarantee of continuation.

For carriers, the move confirms a pattern: the gradual return of major container lines to the corridor, one string at a time, with each line letting a competitor absorb the risk first. Evergreen's five transits are a measured entry, sized so that a single adverse security event would cost little.

The trajectory now depends on whether November and December pass without disruption — if they do, expect the eastbound count to grow and the lone westbound sailing to multiply; if not, the ad hoc label gives Evergreen a quiet exit.