Hapag-Lloyd to avoid Suez for at least another week - spokesperson

One of Hapag-Lloyd's ships was attacked near Yemen on Dec. 15. East-West trades take more time and incur more expenses by having to circumnavigate Africa via the alternative route and operators have charged customers extra fees.

Germany's Hapag-Lloyd will continue to divert its vessels away from the Suez Canal and around the Cape of Good Hope for security reasons, a spokesperson for the company said on Tuesday.

"We monitor the situation closely day-by-day, but will continue to reroute our vessels until Jan. 9," the spokesperson for the world's fifth biggest container liner said in reply to a query. The company, will decide on that day whether or not to continue rerouting ships, the spokesperson added, referring to the results of a meeting of its crisis committee.

Like rivals, Hapag-Lloyd is trying to avoid the Red Sea area after Yemen's Houthi militant group began targeting commercial vessels, disrupting global trade. One of Hapag-Lloyd's ships was attacked near Yemen on Dec. 15.

East-West trades take more time and incur more expenses by having to circumnavigate Africa via the alternative route and operators have charged customers extra fees. Hapag-Lloyd sector peer Maersk will decide later on Tuesday

whether to resume sending vessels through the Suez Canal or redirect them, following a weekend attack on one of its ships in the area after which it paused all Red Sea sailing for 48 hours.