According to Sea-Intelligence, the annual global schedule reliability experienced a notable increase of 19.5 percentage points (PP), rising from 42.6% to 62.1% by the end of 2023. Despite this substantial improvement, it only managed to reach the level observed in 2020 and remains below the 70%-80% range seen in the years 2012-2019.
A concerning trend is the month-on-month (M/M) decline in schedule reliability throughout the fourth quarter of 2023, likely to persist into January 2024 due to the impact of the Red Sea Crisis. However, this is expected to be a temporary setback, as additional transit time is factored into carriers’ schedules, potentially leading to an improvement in schedule reliability.
It’s worth noting that the crisis occurred too late to significantly affect average delays, which improved from 6.38 to 4.83 days in the 2023-FY period.
Examining individual global carriers, Maersk emerged as the most reliable in 2023-FY with schedule reliability of 67.7%, followed by MSC (65.9%), CMA CGM (62.8%), Evergreen (61.9%), and Wan Hai (61.3%) as the five carriers surpassing the 60% mark. The remaining carriers exhibited schedule reliability ranging between 50% and 60% in 2023-FY, with Yang Ming at the lower end with 50.7%. Notably, all 13 global carriers demonstrated double-digit year-on-year (Y/Y) improvements, with Wan Hai leading the pack with a significant improvement of 27.4 PP.
“Of the alliances, 2M was the most reliable at 57.8%, followed by Ocean Alliance (55.3%) and THE Alliance (43.1%). While all of them recorded double-digit Y/Y improvements, only 2M scored better than the industry average on the six major East/West trades. Those six trade lanes also recorded Y/Y improvements in schedule reliability in 2023-FY, however only the Asia-Mediterranean trade lane outscored the industry average on a trade lane level,” commented Alan Murphy, CEO of Sea-Intelligence.
