Last September, the average delay almost reached the level of September 2022. At the beginning of that corona year, the average delay was highest, up to 8 days, and then continued to decline over the course of 2022. Last year, container shipping companies managed to reduce average delays to below 4.5 days, but the Houthis threw a spanner in the works with their attacks on ships in the Red Sea. Delays increased to more than 6 days at the beginning of this year, but when shipping companies switched their Asia-Europe services to sailing via the Cape of Good Hope, the sector quickly got used to the new situation and delays decreased again. to dive below the average of 5 days in April.

From May onwards, Western importers concerned about the reliability of shipping lines' services began importing their holiday supplies prematurely, causing the peak season to start unusually early and increasing pressure on container capacity ever since. Since May, delays have been increasing again, with September as the temporary peak.

Sailing schedule reliability

The fact that the average delay is increasing again is all the more worrying for shippers because more container ships were delayed again in September. According to Sea-Intelligence's Global Schedule Reliability statistics, 51.4% of container ships managed to keep to the agreed sailing schedule and sail on time, a decrease of 1.2% compared to August. The sailing schedule reliability is still better than in the most difficult periods of the corona era, when only one in three ships sailed on time, but a lot worse than a year ago, when container shipping companies had managed to increase reliability to above 60%, before the Houthis struck.

Last September, only two shipping companies managed to sail more than half of their ships on time and thus score above 50%: leader Maersk (55.5%) and CMA CGM (50.9%). Hapag-Lloyd, in third place on the Global Liner Performance rankings, was already below 50%. From next year, Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd will form the new Gemini alliance, which has promised the market that they want to raise sailing reliability above 90% as standard through a renewed sailing services schedule.

Source: NT