In September, global schedule reliability reached the lowest level the industry has seen in 24 months, declining 1.2 percentage points to 51.4%. Schedule reliability has remained between 50% and 55% in 2024 but has been trending downward since May. Nonetheless, low levels of volatility in schedule reliability in 2024 have afforded shippers a reasonably good idea of what to expect from month-to-month, Alan Murphy, CEO of Sea-Intelligence pointed out.

Global schedule reliability experienced a period of brief improvement in mid-2023 when reliability reached 64%. However, the Houthi attacks in the Red Sea disrupted container shipper schedules and consequently, reliability declined in December 2023.

Maersk remained the top carrier in September with a reliability score of 55.5%, down from 70% in 2023. CMA CGM was the only other carrier performing above the 50% mark with a score of 50.9%. Wan Hai was the least reliable with a reliability score of 40.4%. Year-over-year, none of the top 13 carriers recorded improvements. The average delay for LATE vessel arrivals has risen by 0.21 days month-over-month to 5.67 days.

Port congestion is highest in Asia at Chinese ports, Singapore, Hong Kong and Korea, according to Linerlytica. New pressure points are also emerging at the U.S. port of Savannah, and in the largest container ports in Northern Europe. Maersk has said it expects the disruption caused by the Red Sea conflicts to continue into 2025.

Source: The Maritime Executive