Strait of Hormuz transit blocked: Global airlines reroute at high cost, reshaping trade routes

The situation of obstructed passage through the Strait of Hormuz continues to ferment, and major global shipping companies have initiated high-cost contingency plans, urgently adjusting the layout of international trade routes to fully ensure the normal flow of global goods trade.

Leading container shipping companies such as Maersk, MSC, and Hapag-Lloyd generally believe that this shipping crisis in the Strait of Hormuz is not a short-term temporary disruption, but a structural problem affecting the global shipping pattern.

Compared to the previous turmoil in the Red Sea where vessels could bypass the risk by diverting around the Cape of Good Hope, the geographical conditions of the Strait of Hormuz are unique, and there is currently no feasible alternative sea route. All freight vessels entering and exiting the Gulf region must pass through this narrow waterway. Restricted by this, shipping companies can only adapt to the current complex and volatile shipping environment through flexible methods such as optimizing operational models and adjusting route networks.

Maha Rad, a partner at Strategy&, part of PwC Middle East, and a senior shipping expert, stated bluntly that since the outbreak of the crisis, it has been an inevitable trend for shipping companies to adjust their operational layouts. She further stated that the current route adjustments are not simple diversions, but a deep-seated reconstruction of the global shipping network centered on navigation safety, transport reliability, and waterway control capabilities.

To cope with long-term uncertainty, global shipping companies continue to increase their investment in operational flexibility layouts. Recently, many airlines have intensively introduced multiple emergency support measures.

· Maersk announced that it will continue to suspend most of its Strait of Hormuz route services, while adjusting core Middle East shipping lines to the Cape of Good Hope route, and relying on the Port of Salalah in Oman as a transit hub to divert cargo;

· Hapag-Lloyd reconstructed its feeder shipping network to avoid direct calls at ports in the Arabian Gulf, completing cargo transfer via detours;

· MSC newly opened a dedicated Europe—Red Sea—Middle East line, relying on core Red Sea ports such as Aqaba, King Abdullah Port, and Jeddah to consolidate and distribute cargo, and then deploying small, highly flexible feeder vessels to complete end-to-end distribution, opening up segmented transport chains.

Maha Rad analyzed that the current core pain point in the industry is not about screening alternative ports of call, but about building scalable end-to-end logistics channels. This requires matching suitable main and feeder vessel capacities, finding the optimal balance between safety, cost, and timeliness, while coordinating port yard capacity and synergizing full-chain resources such as inland transport, customs clearance, road and rail freight, and warehousing support.

Although various flexible solutions have temporarily maintained the flow of global trade, industry consensus is that such models are difficult to sustain in the long term. Christopher Long, Head of Intelligence and Compliance at Neptune P2P Group, stated that route detours directly lengthen transport cycles, drive up fuel consumption costs, are compounded by persistently high war risk insurance premiums, and exacerbate the load pressure on logistics infrastructure at other ports along the route. The core contradiction facing the industry today is to ensure the continuous operation of the supply chain while holding the bottom line for the safety of vessels, crew, and cargo.

Beyond the high costs of diversion and operational pressure, the economic burden brought by this crisis continues to climb. War risk premiums for vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz have surged significantly, raising the threshold for enduring the transit through the Strait from both the dimensions of economic cost and personal safety.

In the view of industry experts, this shipping crisis may accelerate the structural transformation of the global supply chain that has long been brewing. Maha Rad believes that the crisis is forcing the supply chain to break away from the traditional model of streamlined linearity and transform into a new architecture of high flexibility and networking.

Meanwhile, the competitive landscape of shipping in the Gulf region is also being reshaped, forcing local policymakers to re-layout supply chain resilience strategies. Regional countries are gradually abandoning the mindset of single-port competition, turning instead to building integrated logistics corridors that combine ports, railways, highways, and industrial parks to strengthen the overall competitiveness of regional logistics hubs.

Industry consensus is becoming increasingly clear: global trade can no longer rely on a single optimal route, and key trade corridors have become core strategic assets for countries. Christopher Long emphasized that geopolitical turmoil will continue to impact the shipping ecosystem in the coming years, and supply chain resilience construction must be deeply integrated into the global trade system architecture as a core consideration for long-term development.