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Red Sea shipping diversions will dominate shipper-carrier relationships on the Asia-Europe trade lane through 2025 and hamper the on-time performance of ships at ports on both ends of the corridor. The Houthi attacks that removed the Red Sea as an Asia-Europe option in late 2023 came as an unpleasant surprise for shippers, and a welcome relief for oversupplied carriers, but the container shipping industry will go into 2025 with the longer voyages now baked into ocean schedules. That, unfortunately, doesn’t translate into improved on-time performance with both Asia-North Europe and Asia-Mediterranean trade lanes recording schedule reliability of less than 50% for much of 2024, according to Sea-Intelligence. Even as demand began to slow in the last quarter of 2024, ports in Europe and Asia were reporting a significant increase in congestion and carriers were struggling with equipment shortages. Carriers have penciled in a return to the Red Sea for the second half and some analysts are using that as a baseline for their market outlooks, but the reality is that no one knows. Should the midyear prediction be correct, it will immediately see an estimated 10% of excess capacity soaked up by the diversions around Africa returned to the market, creating chaos at overrun ports and putting downward pressure on rates. Still, the excess capacity may not be as severe as initially thought, with ocean carriers pulling hard on capacity management levers such as slow steaming, scrapping and blanking sailings to limit the supply overhang. Demand also is expected to slow with Europe’s major economies facing uncertainty over persistent core inflation, policy directions and geopolitical conflicts that are dampening the near-term outlook. In this unclear environment, a panel of industry experts will discuss what lies ahead for Asia-Europe and the lessons learned from a volatile year that cargo owners can draw on to shape their 2025 approach to the trade lane.