en.Wedoany.com Reported - Maersk has announced that it will adjust the Mediterranean-West Africa WAF6 service to transit via the Red Sea, marking the company's third move in recent days to resume a Suez Canal route. In a statement, Maersk said the WAF6 service, which connects the Middle East, the Mediterranean, and West Africa and is operated exclusively by Maersk, will now transit the Red Sea between Salalah, Oman, and the Western Mediterranean, representing another step in the gradual return to the Suez Canal corridor.

Previously, Maersk had already resumed the US-flagged East Coast-Middle East MECL service and the Gemini Asia-Mediterranean Loop 2 service, operated jointly with Hapag-Lloyd. According to an analysis by Xeneta's eeSea liner database, the WAF6 service was an Eastern Mediterranean-Western Mediterranean-West Africa route before March this year, with a port rotation of Port Said - Algeciras - Tanger - Tena - Lagos, deploying five vessels with an average capacity of 4,600 TEUs. Following the outbreak of the US-Israel-Iran conflict, Maersk canceled calls at Eastern Mediterranean ports and instead introduced Salalah, Oman, as a transshipment hub. The adjusted port rotation became Tanger - Algeciras - Tema - Apapa - Cape of Good Hope - Salalah, with the number of vessels increased to nine, effectively transforming the route into a Middle East-Europe service. In May this year, a tenth vessel was added to the service, significantly improving schedule reliability. According to Sea-Intelligence's monthly report, the on-time arrival rate rose from 0% in February/March to 40%.

By restoring the Red Sea route, Maersk expects to withdraw two to three vessels from the WAF6 service and redeploy them to other networks, while continuing to offer more options for Asian cargo via the Salalah transshipment hub.