The Suez Canal on Saturday witnessed the passage of the CMA CGM BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, the largest container ship to transit the waterway in two years, in what the canal authority’s chairperson described as a positive sign of traffic returning to the crucial trade route.
Admiral Osama Rabie, chairperson of the Suez Canal Authority (SCA), announced the “gradual return” of giant container ships to the canal. The CMA CGM vessel was part of the northbound convoy, sailing from the United Kingdom to Malaysia.
The ship, which belongs to the French shipping line CMA CGM, has a length of 399 metres, a width of 54 metres, a draught of 13.5 metres, and can carry 17,859 containers, with a net tonnage of 177,000 tons.
It was the vessel’s first transit of the Suez Canal and the Bab al-Mandab strait since its last passage on Oct. 22, 2023, due to tensions in the region.
“The passage of the container ship CMA CGM BENJAMIN FRANKLIN through the canal and then the Bab al-Mandab strait is a positive indicator towards the beginning of the return of giant container ships to transit the Suez Canal once again, in light of the return of stability to the Red Sea region,” Rabie said in a statement.
He added that the incentives and flexible marketing policies adopted by the authority since last May have succeeded in restoring 28 voyages of medium-sized container ships, with average tonnages of 130,000 to 160,000 tons, to the canal for their trips from Europe to Asia. This includes 19 voyages by CMA CGM and nine by MSC.
Rabie also noted that CMA CGM had also rerouted another of its giant container ships, the CMA CGM ZHENG HE, to transit the Suez Canal instead of the Cape of Good Hope.
He stressed that the safe passage of the CMA CGM BENJAMIN FRANKLIN through the Bab al-Mandab strait after transiting the canal sends a “message of reassurance to all shipping lines that calm has returned to the region,” which he said should prompt a reconsideration of sailing schedules and the implementation of trial voyages through the Red Sea and the Suez Canal.
