A multimodal corridor operated jointly by Danish ferry and logistics operator DFDS and Egypt's Pan Marine Group is recording weekly growth of up to 50% as the US-Israel war on Iran reshapes Middle East freight flows. Combining ferry and truck legs across Europe, Egypt and the Gulf states, the route is being positioned as an alternative to the traditional sea passage through the Suez Canal and the Strait of Hormuz. In its statement, DFDS said, "We have great confidence in the route's long-term potential and expect volumes to grow further in the coming years."
In operational terms, European cargo is funnelled through Italian and Turkish ports — most notably Trieste — onto DFDS ferries bound for Egypt, where Pan Marine Group coordinates trucking through tunnels under the Suez Canal into the Sinai Peninsula and beyond. From there, freight reaches Gulf destinations such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates by road. The combination can compress transit times that traditionally take 18 to 22 days on the Europe-Mediterranean-Suez-Aden-Hormuz routing down to roughly 7 to 10 days — a meaningful advantage for time-sensitive cargo such as electronics, automotive components and medical supplies.
The Pan Marine partnership extends DFDS's recent Mediterranean Ro-Ro investments, including services linking Türkiye-Italy, Greece-Italy and Tunisia-Marseille. The escalation of the Iran-Israel-US conflict has driven Hormuz insurance premiums sharply higher and recast Suez transits — already exposed to the Houthi threat — as part of a combined risk picture. Against that backdrop, the route's transition from low-volume launch a year ago to near-50% weekly growth illustrates how seriously shippers are now taking the case for reducing dependence on critical chokepoints.
From a supply chain perspective, three points stand out. First, the rise of multimodal routings exposes how single-mode maritime dominance fractures during global crises: where ships cannot pass — or where passing has become prohibitively expensive — land-sea combinations emerge rapidly. Second, that a northern-European operator like DFDS is partnering this deeply with an Egyptian counterpart on the southern shore of the Mediterranean signals new logistics coalitions are being assembled across the Europe-Africa-Gulf triangle. Third, when read alongside Türkiye's Mersin-Gaziantep-Kapıkule-Persian Gulf rail corridor work and Trans-Caspian (Middle Corridor) developments, the picture is one of a global supply chain searching for multiple parallel backbones as alternatives to Hormuz and Suez.
Key Takeaways:
1. The DFDS-Pan Marine Group multimodal route is recording weekly growth of up to 50% during the US-Israel war on Iran.
2. The route runs from Italian and Turkish ports — notably Trieste — by ferry to Egypt and onward to the Gulf states by road.
3. The combination can cut the classic 18-22-day Suez-Hormuz transit to roughly 7-10 days.
4. DFDS says it has great confidence in the route's long-term potential and expects further volume growth.
5. The route's rise illustrates a global supply-chain search for multiple parallel routings around Hormuz and Suez vulnerabilities.
