diff --git a/core/camel-main/src/main/java/org/apache/camel/main/MainSupportModelConfigurer.java b/core/camel-main/src/main/java/org/apache/camel/main/MainSupportModelConfigurer.java
index 31d2ae28d9b32..f2f23ef642acf 100644
--- a/core/camel-main/src/main/java/org/apache/camel/main/MainSupportModelConfigurer.java
+++ b/core/camel-main/src/main/java/org/apache/camel/main/MainSupportModelConfigurer.java
@@ -101,6 +101,10 @@ static void setVariableProperties(
                 id = "route";
                 key = key.substring(6);
                 key = StringHelper.replaceFirst(key, ".", ":");
+            } else if (key.startsWith("global.")) {
+                id = "global";
+                key = key.substring(7);
+                key = StringHelper.replaceFirst(key, ".", ":");
             }
             VariableRepository repo = camelContext.getCamelContextExtension().getContextPlugin(VariableRepositoryFactory.class)
                     .getVariableRepository(id);
diff --git a/core/camel-main/src/test/java/org/apache/camel/main/MainVariableTest.java b/core/camel-main/src/test/java/org/apache/camel/main/MainVariableTest.java
index 1202db74721f6..40a1fd0fbb8e2 100644
--- a/core/camel-main/src/test/java/org/apache/camel/main/MainVariableTest.java
+++ b/core/camel-main/src/test/java/org/apache/camel/main/MainVariableTest.java
@@ -31,7 +31,7 @@ public class MainVariableTest {
     public void testMainVariableParameters() throws Exception {
         Main main = new Main();
 
-        main.addInitialProperty("camel.variable.global:greeting", "Random number");
+        main.addInitialProperty("camel.variable.global.greeting", "Random number");
         // global is default
         main.addInitialProperty("camel.variable.random", "999");