Evergreen Returns to Suez, Leaving Zim the Last Major Holdout

Evergreen will send the 16,556 teu Ever Eon through the Suez Canal on November 7, ending almost three years of Red Sea avoidance and leaving Israel's Zim as the most prominent major carrier still routing around Africa.

Liner consultancy Linerlytica reports the Ever Eon and sister ship Ever Edit, also 16,556 teu, will transit Suez on November 7 and 11 respectively on the Ocean Alliance's NEU7/CES service. The 20,124 teu Ever Gifted follows on November 16, deployed on the alliance's MD2 Mediterranean service.

Evergreen had been the last Ocean Alliance member holding out against a canal return. Partners CMA CGM, Cosco and OOCL had already restored services through the waterway.

What does the full industry picture look like?

The move comes as the broader retreat from Cape routing accelerates across all major alliances:

• The Premier Alliance — Ocean Network Express, HMM and Yang Ming — is preparing to restore further Mediterranean services through Suez.
• Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd's Gemini Cooperation has announced its ME1 service linking India and Europe will switch from the Cape of Good Hope, with the first westbound sailing departing Salalah this week.
• Linerlytica assesses that all three major liner alliances, plus MSC, are on course to restore their full Suez networks by the first quarter of 2027.

That timeline leaves Zim exposed. Yemen's Houthis have specifically singled out Israeli-linked tonnage as potential targets in the Red Sea, a threat that has not lifted for the Israeli carrier even as security conditions have improved enough for its competitors to return.

What does the return mean for capacity?

The commercial consequences for the supply-demand balance are considerable. Earlier this year, Xeneta estimated that a comprehensive return to Suez could effectively release between 6% and 8% of global containership capacity.

That tonnage comes back just as another wave of newbuildings prepares to enter service. For carriers, the arithmetic is straightforward: shorter voyages through Suez reduce effective capacity demand, while yards keep delivering ships ordered during the pandemic-era boom. Downward pressure on spot rates is the likely result once the network shifts complete.

For shippers, the shift restores faster transit times on Asia–Europe and Mediterranean lanes, compressing the routing penalty that has applied since attacks forced carriers off the Red Sea in late 2023. Forwarders will need to redraw planning assumptions built on Cape routings over nearly three years.

For Zim, the isolation is strategic as much as operational. As rivals recover fuel and time savings on Suez routings, the Israeli carrier carries a structural cost and transit-time disadvantage on lanes where it competes head-to-head, with no clear exit while Houthi targeting of Israeli-linked ships persists.

With all three alliances and MSC pointing at a first-quarter 2027 completion of Suez network restoration, the industry's effective capacity could expand by the high single digits in percentage terms before that deadline — a shift the freight market will price in well before the last holdout resumes the short way to Europe.