Liner schedule reliability: some improvement as strike turmoil begins

On the eve of possible widespread disruption due to industrial action across US east and Gulf coast ports, schedule reliability across the container shipping sector has been marginally improving.

According to SeaIntelligence Consulting, global schedule reliability in August improved by 0.7 percentage points compared with July, to reach 52.8% of all sailings arriving on time, and it added that overall schedule reliability this year had stabilised within the 50%-55% range.

“While disappointingly low, the minimal volatility this year does give shippers a relatively good idea of what to expect month-on-month,” Sea-Intelligence chief executive Alan Murphy said.

However, schedule reliability in August was 10.2 percentage points below the same point in 2023, while the average delay for late vessel arrivals increased by 0.03 days over July, to 5.28 days – the only point at which vessels have been later than this was during the pandemic period of 2021-2022.

On a year-on-year basis, August arraivals were 0.62 days later than August 2023.

The best-performing carriers were Maersk, with a schedule reliability rate of 54.7%, closely followed by soon-to-be Gemini partner Hapag-Lloyd, with a schedule reliability rate of 54.3%.

Another eight carriers – OOCL, HMM, CMA CGM, MSC, Cosco, Evergreen, ONE and Yang Ming – all posted reliability rates of above the 50% mark, while Pacific International Lines had the lowest reliability, at 37.2%.

“In August 2024, the schedule reliability difference between the most and least reliable carrier increased to 17.5 percentage points, the highest figure in all of 2024.

“There were nine carriers with a month-on-month improvement in schedule reliability in August 2024, with HMM recording the largest increase of 7.4 percentage points,” said Mr Murphy.

“On a year-on-year level, only HMM and Yang Ming recorded an improvement, of 4.4 and 3.6 percentage points respectively,” he added.

If the US east and Gulf coast strikes are prolonged, the October schedule reliability figures could make for grim reading.