IN Brief:
- CMA CGM has diverted cargo planned for Algiers to Djen-Djen after operational disruption at the Algerian capital’s main cargo gateway.
- Reported vessel waits of four to five days have started to translate into omitted calls and wider knock-on effects across Mediterranean services.
- The episode shows how a single congested port can spread delay risk across feeder networks, inland collection, and equipment repositioning.
CMA CGM has diverted cargo intended for Algiers to Djen-Djen after congestion at Algeria’s main cargo gateway intensified into a service-level disruption. The carrier told customers that cargo due to discharge from the vessel Raphaela, voyage BRSVAS1MA, would be offloaded at the alternative Algerian port, with collection proceeding there once customs and documentation formalities were completed. Empty containers linked to the move are also due to be returned to Djen-Djen rather than Algiers.
The operational problem has moved beyond routine delay. Market reporting put average waits at Algiers in the four-to-five-day range, and carriers serving Algerian trades have already started omitting the port to protect wider rotations. Raphaela is part of CMA CGM’s TMX2 service linking Turkish and Italian ports with Malta and Algeria, so disruption at one call now feeds directly into schedule reliability across a broader Mediterranean loop rather than remaining a local exception.
That matters because the mechanics of a diversion are rarely tidy. A discharge switch changes inland planning, customs handling, drayage assumptions, depot activity, and equipment recovery. Importers expecting freight at Algiers have to rework collection, while carriers have to decide how much schedule protection is worth sacrificing before another port omission becomes unavoidable. Once empties start being repositioned through a different gateway, the issue has already spread well past the vessel arrival board.
Algerian ports were hit by severe weather earlier this year, with CMA CGM previously warning that closures and recovery delays could add three to five days of congestion. Algiers then entered 2026 carrying the burden of a large gateway role, having handled 931,300 TEU and 13.6 million tonnes of cargo in 2025. High throughput is not the problem in itself, but it does make recovery harder when berth productivity, yard flow, or landside clearance lose rhythm and backlogs begin to stack.
The wider Mediterranean market is not exactly short of pressure either. Network slack remains thin, and carriers are already juggling reroutings, revised rotations, and uneven port performance across several corridors. In that environment, the threshold between “manageable delay” and “network disturbance” is lower than it used to be. A few lost days at one gateway can now absorb the buffer that carriers once relied on to keep weekly services looking stable on paper.
For cargo owners moving through North Africa, the immediate issue is practical rather than strategic. Where will the box land, when can it clear, and what happens to onward collection and equipment return? But the episode also reinforces a broader point about regional shipping this year: resilience is being tested less by single dramatic events than by repeated operational frictions that steadily erode schedule confidence one port call at a time.
