Naval escort as ships reroute to Red Sea

Gemini Cooperation announce rerouting plans

The Gemini Cooperation, an operational collaboration between AP Moller – Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd, will reroute vessels through the Red Sea and Suez Canal with naval assistance from the middle of this month.

According to a statement issued today; “The highest possible security precautions will be undertaken, as the safety of the crew, the vessels, and the customers’ cargo remains the highest priority of both carriers”.

Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd will continue to monitor the security situation in the Middle East region very closely, and any alteration to the Gemini service will remain dependent on the ongoing stability in the Red Sea area and the absence of any escalation in conflicts in the region.

This comes as the collaboration celebrates its first anniversary after launching at the beginning of February last year to include 29 shared mainliner and 29 shared shuttle services on East-West trade routes.

The service in scope is the IMX service, which connects India and the Middle East with the Mediterranean. From mid-February, changes will be implemented on westbound sailings as of vessel Albert Maersk and on eastbound sailings as of vessel Astrid Maersk.

When possible, Hapag-Lloyd and Maersk will also implement changes to the SE1 and SE3 services to go through the Red Sea and the Suez Canal at a later stage. In this respect, further information to customers and other relevant stakeholders will follow in due course. No further changes to the Gemini network related to the Red Sea are foreseen at this stage.

The implementation will be carried out in a way that keeps disruption for customers to a minimum, upholding the Gemini Cooperation’s trademark of industry leading schedule reliability.