Mediterranean Shipping (MSC), the world's largest container shipping company, will launch a new hybrid sea–land shipping service in response to the current disruption to shipping in the Mideast Gulf.
The Europe-Red Sea-Middle East Express that bypasses the strait of Hormuz will be launched on 10 May, to meet the rising demand for services from Europe to the Red Sea given the complex geopolitical environment in the Middle East.
The service will call at several strategic European ports, including Gdansk, Klaipeda, Bremerhaven, Antwerp, Valencia, Barcelona and Gioia Tauro before directly connecting to Abu Kir port in Egypt, King Abdullah Port, Jeddah, and Aqaba in Jordan.
The service is built around a multimodal "land bridge" model. Container ships will transit via the Suez Canal to Red Sea ports in Saudi Arabia, where containers will be transported overland to Saudi Arabia's Dammam port and subsequently redistributed to Mideast Gulf ports using feeder vessels. Feeder vessels are smaller container ships used to transport cargo between regional ports and major hub ports. This route effectively removes the need to transit the strait of Hormuz.
The first containership is set to depart Antwerp on 10 May, under voyage OC619 A. The eastbound rotation will cover Gdansk, Klaipeda, Bremerhaven, Antwerp, Valencia, Barcelona, Gioia Tauro, Abu Kir, King Abdullah Port, Jeddah and Aqaba.
This is one of several examples of alternative routing solutions that have emerged since the war. Similar multimodal solutions are also in place by other major containership companies, German shipowner Hapag-Lloyd and Danish shipping firm Maersk, highlighting a broader market shift toward hybrid sea–land logistics chains because of disruptions to key maritime chokepoints in the Middle East.
Maersk expanded its "land bridge" transport solutions on 4 May across the Mideast Gulf, involving a mix of carrier-haulage "land bridges" and domestic services linking ports in the north of Mideast Gulf, so called the Upper Gulf, Iraq and key Saudi Arabian's ports.
Hapag-Lloyd, meanwhile, has reopened bookings on 4 May to Upper Gulf destinations via third-party feeder services, enabling cargo movements to and from Kuwait, Dammam, Qatar, Iraq and the UAE without transiting the strait of Hormuz. Using Sharjah as a transshipment hub, the service supports dry, reefer and in-gauge special cargo, with bonded trucking links between Sharja and Khor Fakkan connected to ports in Oman and India.
