Suez transits are recovering, and Egyptian ports feel it first

Lloyd's List Intelligence recorded 1,088 transits through the Suez Canal between 20 July and 16 August 2026, against 1,070 in the preceding period from 22 June to 19 July. The tonnage passing the Red Sea's northern chokepoint over those four weeks came to roughly 88.6 million deadweight tonnes, which is the highest volume since January 2024.

The same reporting puts traffic 41% below pre-crisis levels. A recovery measured against the bottom is not the same as a return to normal, and a schedule built on the assumption that Suez is operating as it did in 2023 is still building on the wrong number.

Containerships and LNG carriers are reported as the main drivers, with major carriers progressively restoring Asia to Europe services through the canal after avoiding it since late 2023. Crude tankers are adding tonnage rather than transit count, as very large crude carriers loading at Yanbu opt for Suez instead of routing past the Bab el Mandeb.

For a shipper the practical consequence is that the improvement you see depends on what you move and who carries it. A container on a mainline Asia to Europe service is more likely to benefit than a parcel on a service that has not yet reinstated its Suez rotation.

Rising transit volumes put more boxes through Egyptian gateways, and the ports that serve canal traffic most directly are the ones that absorb it first. Port Said sits on the northern approach and takes transhipment volume; Alexandria carries the widest liner coverage; Ain Sokhna serves the Red Sea side. Volume returning to a route that has been running below capacity for two years is exactly the condition in which berth waiting and yard congestion appear.

The planning response is unchanged in kind, only in urgency: confirm the actual rotation of the service you are booked on rather than the published one, keep the customs file complete before arrival rather than after, and treat transit-time quotations from the diversion period as historical.

Transit counts, tonnage and the 41% comparison are from Lloyd's List Intelligence, Red Sea Brief, 20 August 2026. The characterisation of which vessel types are driving the recovery is from the same briefing.

MIDTRANS has no vessel-tracking capability of its own and does not present third-party market data as proprietary. Where our own view is offered above, it is described as an operational read and is not a measurement.