The Danish research and analysis provider Sea-Intelligence has reported that schedule reliability dropped again month-on-month in December, this time by 1.2 percentage points to 32%, the lowest ever global schedule reliability since 2011.
The study, which included figures up to December 2021 across 34 different trade lanes and more than 60 carriers, showed that on a year-on-year level, schedule reliability was also declined by 12.5 percentage points.
“Despite the low schedule reliability in 2021, there hasn’t been much fluctuation, with the global scores hovering between 32%-40% for the most part,” explained Alan Murphy, CEO of Sea-Intelligence.
Furthermore, the average delay for late vessel arrivals increased to 7.33 days in December 2021, which is the fifth consecutive month with a delay figure above seven days.
Maersk was once again the most reliable of the top-14 carriers, with schedule reliability of 46.2%, followed by its subsidiary Hamburg Süd with 41.4%, as seen below.
Only Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) had schedule reliability between 30%-40%, with six carriers including Hapag-Lloyd, HMM, CMA CGM, ZIM, Pacific International Lines (PIL) and Ocean Network Express (ONE), recording schedule reliability of 20%-30%.
The remaining five carriers, Yang Ming, COSCO, Orient Overseas Container Line (OOCL), Wan Hai and Evergreen, had schedule reliability of under 20%, with the latter registering the lowest December 2021 schedule reliability figure of 14.3%.
“Nine carriers recorded a month-on-month improvement in schedule reliability, while no carrier recorded a year-on-year improvement, with all but four carriers recording double-digit year-on-year declines,” noted Murphy.