Container shipping giant AP Moller-Maersk has diverted 26 of its own vessels around the Cape of Good Hope in the last 10 days or so, while only 5 more were scheduled to start the same journey according to detailed breakdown by Reuters.

The operator Maersk based in Denmark will sail almost all their vessels travelling between Asia and Europe through the Suez Canal. The move from now takes place while diverting only a handful of vessels around Africa, a Reuters breakdown of the group's schedule showed today.

Asides Maersk, other major shipping companies, including MSC, the world's biggest container line and Hapag-Lloyd, stopped using Red Sea routes and also the Suez Canal earlier this month according to Reuters. This followed incidents carried out by Yemen's Houthi militant group which began targeting vessels and thus disrupting international trade.

The container operators’ instead rerouted ships around the African continent via the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa to avoid attacks. This led to charging customers extra fees coupled in adding further days or indeed weeks to the time it takes to transport goods from Asia to Europe and across the Atlantic Ocean to North America with calls to east coast ports.

It was however announced by Maersk on 24 December to say it was preparing a return of containerships to the Red Sea, citing a US-led military operation to deploy naval vessel to the region and protect such vessels.

Maersk also yesterday released sailing schedules that showed ships were headed for the Suez Canal and this is to take place in forthcoming weeks. RTE News has more.

Afloat adds the Swiss-based MSC has a container fleet total of 800 vessels combined with a 22.50 TEU capacity (annually as estimated by Maersk in 2022).

As of May 2023, Maersk was operating 682 container ships with a combined capacity of around 4.13 million TEUs. While, Hapag-Lloyd offers a fleet with a vessel capacity 2.0 million TEU, as well as a container capacity 2.90 million TEU.