Last updated: 24 March 2026

Since early March 2026, escalation across the Gulf has affected port operations, airspace, vessel routing, insurance availability, crew changes and inland contingency planning. As of 24 March, many ports are operating again, but not always at full capacity, and several restrictions remain in place across terminals, airspace and high-risk offshore areas.

If you have any questions about landbridge solutions or working around Middle East disruption, contact us.

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Live timeline

24 March 2026 — No fresh change, but disruption conditions remain in force

Inchcape Shipping Services (ISS) latest Middle East operational status update says there were no changes since the previous report, but that does not mean a return to normal. Fujairah Oil Tanker Terminal remains only partially operational, Vopak’s Single Point Mooring (SPM) operations remain suspended, and ISS continues to warn that conditions can change at short notice. General cargo and container discharge at Fujairah and Khor Fakkan were still proceeding as scheduled.

21 March 2026 — Region stabilises operationally, but restrictions remain across multiple gateways

By 21 March, most UAE ports were operational, including Jebel Ali, Hamriya and Sharjah, while Fujairah’s oil terminal was still only partially online and GPS spoofing/jamming warnings remained in force offshore. Oman was open but under partial restrictions, Bahrain had resumed vessel movements only on a limited basis, Qatar still had operational restrictions at some terminals, and Iraq’s Basra Oil Terminal and SPM Somo Terminal were still listed as having ceased export operations. Egypt’s entry noted that the Suez Canal and all Egyptian ports were running normally, which is important because it separated Gulf disruption from Suez-side terminal continuity.

19 March 2026 — Carriers shift from short-term disruption mode to contingency-network mode

By 19 March, Maersk’s language had shifted from incident response to contingency planning. Its Middle East operations page said some insurers had reduced or withdrawn coverage for shipments into the Red Sea, Gulf of Oman and Persian Gulf, especially on the vessel side, while Maersk expanded landbridge and multimodal alternatives across the Gulf. This is a useful marker for the supply chain impact: once carriers are building workarounds into inland and storage options, the disruption is no longer just maritime risk; it is network redesign. If you want to learn more about landbridge solutions, click here to get in touch.

18 March 2026 — Port status improves, but “open” no longer means fully normal

Maersk’s port operations page, updated 18 March, showed a wide list of Gulf terminals as open across the UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, Bahrain and Oman. Even so, carrier and local-advisory language in the same period makes clear that “open” did not mean frictionless: customers were still being directed to separate contingency and advisory pages for terminal impacts, vessel planning and service changes.

15 March 2026 — Recovery begins, but with rerouting, customs workarounds and partial capacity

In the UAE, Jebel Ali, Hamriya and Sharjah terminal operations were normal, while Fujairah’s tanker terminal had resumed only partially and several berths remained unavailable. A temporary customs measure allowing cargo for Jebel Ali and Abu Dhabi to move in by road from Fujairah and Khor Fakkan, effectively formalising a workaround to keep cargo flowing. Bahrain was only gradually resuming operations, Oman still had partial restrictions, and Iraq’s Basra Oil Terminal and SPM Somo Terminal were still not exporting.

13–12 March 2026 — Airspace starts reopening, and ports confirm some earlier evacuations were precautionary

Airspace across most Gulf countries was reopening on a restricted basis, allowing some crew changes to become possible again, though still under constraints. Port assets were reported assafe and that an evacuation had been carried out purely as a precautionary safety measure, a sign that some earlier operational interruptions were linked to immediate risk controls rather than physical terminal loss.

12 March 2026 — Cost consequences become explicit

An Emergency Freight rate for cargo loading from or destined to ports in Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia (Dammam and Jubail), Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE and Oman except Salalah. The published charges were USD 1,800 for a 20’ dry container, USD 3,000 for a 40’ dry container, and USD 3,800 for reefer, special and DG containers. Maersk linked those charges to alternative routing, storage in transit and additional chartering requirements. For shippers, this is the point where disruption clearly moved from operational inconvenience into direct landed-cost inflation.

6 March 2026 — Service suspensions deepen in the Upper Gulf

Hapag-Lloyd said its IG1 and KWF services would be temporarily suspended effective 6 March and until further notice because of operational and security constraints in the Upper Gulf. This matters because service suspension is more severe than rerouting: it affects planning assumptions for importers and exporters, not just transit time. Hapag’s live ticker later described the region as subject to booking suspensions, surcharges and operational changes, confirming that carriers were still actively reshaping their Gulf networks.

5 March 2026 — Navigation risk becomes a standalone issue

Reports of intermittent GPS spoofing and jamming in offshore Fujairah. These disruptions could cause positional inaccuracies, erratic vessel movements on ECDIS and misleading location information, and mariners are advised to treat the area as high risk. Even where berths and terminals were working, this was a reminder that navigational integrity itself had become part of the operational risk picture.

1-2 March 2026 — Carriers stop treating the Gulf disruption as localised

On 1 March, both Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd announced major routing changes. Maersk said it would pause future Trans-Suez sailings through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait on ME11 and MECL and reroute those services around the Cape of Good Hope; the same update also said Maersk was suspending all vessel crossings in the Strait of Hormuz until further notice. Hapag-Lloyd issued similar guidance on 1 March for its IMX service, also rerouting around the Cape, and on 2 March said the Arabian Gulf security situation was affecting vessel movements and port operations across several countries. This is the clearest early-March turning point: carriers responded as though the disruption could no longer be ring-fenced.

1 March 2026 — Early Gulf picture: airspace closures, reduced traffic, uncertain Hormuz transits

Airspace was reported as closed in most Gulf countries and that no crew change was possible at that moment. It also said there was no official announcement confirming closure of the Strait of Hormuz, but that vessels were being advised over VHF not to transit and that some ships had managed to cross while many others had not. In Qatar, Ras Laffan/Mesaieed was open with reduced traffic and Hamad, Doha and Al Ruwais were open. That mix of open ports, impaired airspace and uncertain strait access is exactly why supply chains became hard to predict so quickly.

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