By Alexander Whiteman 11 August 2026Bookings are back on for Cosco Red Sea services, the Chinese carrier set to operate a Far East-Red Sea rotation that will see vessels cross the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, despite Iran-backed Yemeni rebel group the Houthis attacking ships in the strait. The decision by Cosco to commence Red Sea sailings continues what Vespucci Maritime CEO Lars Jensen described as “the slow normalisation of the Suez-route”, on the back of CMA CGM, Hapag-Lloyd, and Maersk all adding capacity to the routing. Sources told The Loadstar the decision to route through the Red Sea, particularly given renewed Houthi threats to strike commercial shipping in response to the US/Israeli war against Iran, was “risky”. Meanwhile, Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd have upped their game, with their Gemini AE19/SE4 Asia-Mediterranean service switching to a Red Sea routing, joining the AE15/SE3, which switched in July. “The CMA CGM services with some, or all, vessels operated on Asia-Europe via Suez are EPIC, FAL-1, FAL-3, OCR, MEDEX, MEX and BEX2, some of which are also Ocean Alliance services.”