This is not a standard all-sea loop. At the heart of the plan is a multimodal landbridge across Saudi Arabia, moving part of the container flow off vessels and onto trucks.
The shift is driven by constraints on traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, which are making traditional sea routes less reliable and, in some cases, effectively unavailable. Carriers are being pushed toward sea–land alternatives to keep cargo moving – even if that means longer transit times and higher operating costs.
MSC’s new setup: sea, trucks and regional hubs
MSC says the new service is due to launch from Antwerp in May 2026. The rotation includes European ports in Germany, Italy, Lithuania and Spain, before heading via the Suez Canal into the Red Sea. Two Saudi ports – Jeddah and King Abdullah Port – are positioned as the key handover points where containers are transferred to trucks.
According to the carrier, containers will be trucked from Jeddah to Dammam on Saudi Arabia’s east coast. The corridor is roughly 1,300 kilometres and runs via Riyadh. From Dammam, cargo will continue on feeder vessels to ports around the Persian Gulf, including Abu Dhabi and Jebel Ali in Dubai. In other words, MSC is replacing one sea leg with a combined port–road–port solution.
Hormuz remains a choke point for global logistics
The route rethink follows restrictions affecting passage through the Strait of Hormuz – a corridor that, before the crisis escalated, carried around 20 percent of global oil and gas supplies.
As shipping in the area tightened, ocean carriers began rolling out workarounds, including:
- Hapag-Lloyd AG launching overland options via Saudi Arabia and Oman,
- A.P. Moller–Maersk A/S expanding landbridge-style concepts,
- ports in Oman and the United Arab Emirates seeing rising volumes and stronger demand for trucking capacity.
The result is a Gulf region that increasingly functions as a network of connected sea–land corridors, not just a set of traditional transhipment ports.
Road freight becomes the missing link
In this model, trucks play a central role, filling the gap when the usual sea leg cannot be operated as usual.
The roughly 1,300-kilometre Jeddah–Dammam corridor is emerging as one of the region’s main container corridors, absorbing flows that previously moved directly through Hormuz. At the same time, feeder links are being developed to Bahrain, Iraq and Kuwait.
In practice, this builds a regional logistics mesh in which road transport acts as the connector between maritime segments.
Longer, costlier and with a bigger carbon footprint
Rerouting comes with operational trade-offs. Industry reporting indicates that these new solutions:
- extend transit times
- raise operating costs
- increase carbon dioxide emissions across the end-to-end supply chain
Meanwhile, ports outside Hormuz – particularly in Oman and the United Arab Emirates – are handling more diverted containers, adding pressure for further investment in road infrastructure.
The market moves toward hybrid logistics
MSC’s decision reflects a broader shift: global logistics players are no longer treating ocean transport as a closed system. Instead, they are increasingly building multi-modal sea–land corridors and regional transhipment hubs that rely on road transport as a core component. In geopolitically unstable areas, trucks are no longer just a last-mile tool – they are becoming a full-fledged part of global supply chains.
