The Red Sea crisis has compelled shipping lines to reroute around the Cape of Good Hope, significantly extending sailing distances and consequently increasing transit times.
According to Sea-Intelligence, it is important to be cautious when assessing transit times, as impressive figures may be technically possible but often come with a caveat; they pertain to non-competitive port pairs that carriers do not typically market as such.
“For an apples-to-apples comparison, we need to look at the shortest actual transit times for a port-pair i.e., the minimum transit time,” pointed out Alan Murphy, CEO of Sea-Intelligence.
Since the crisis began (January-March 2024), the average minimum transit time from the two sub-regions of Asia (North & South East Asia) to the three sub-regions of the Mediterranean (East, West, & Central MED) has increased by 39%.
This comparison is based on a six-month baseline period (July-December 2023) and considers the four most connected port pairs in each region pair. In contrast, the Asia-North Europe routes experienced a lower increase in transit time, averaging 15%.
In summary, the most competitive transit times have risen by an average of 39% for Asia-MED routes and 15% for Asia-North Europe routes since the crisis began.
He went on to explain, “The four most impacted subregion-pairs connect to East and Central Mediterranean, which makes sense because those connections had the longest detour. The average minimum transit time increased by 61%-63% to the East Mediterranean and by 39%-40% to the Central Mediterranean. For North Europe, connections to the Baltics had the smallest impact on transit times from the Red Sea crisis, with the average minimum transit time increasing by 7%-11%.”