IN A Liner Reliability survey Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) has not only come out tops but set a new benchmark as well - one that will serve as a benchmark for future surveys.
The Liner Analysis Award is given each year for different regions by Freighting Update (a British publication) and was conducted as an annual survey of liner services between the North Continent and Southern Africa.
The reliability of shipping lines providing a fixed-day service with South Africa is placed under the spotlight with judging based on average time lost due to delays or other reasons.
This year's survey reported that traffic had been plagued during the year with hold-ups in South African ports due to gales in Cape Town and a lengthy labour dispute, leading to appalling congestion at Durban during the second quarter of 1998.
The article explained that SAECS had been forced to skip several calls at Durban and Tilbury (UK) as a result of these delays. It also reflected on adjustments to normal scheduling, including the exclusion of Cape Town by the southbound SAECS service, whilst the different type of MSC scheduling , which included ships sailing on from Durban to Australia and back became a factor when Australian ports were involved in a lengthy labour dispute..
Although some of these problems took place outside the time frame of the survey their knock-on effect was still in evidence in some carriers' schedules.
As a result of these hiccups, said Freighting Update, the tussle for schedule reliability was effectively reduced to a two-horse race between last year's winner Maersk and MSC.
MSC celebrated 12 years of fixed-day weekly operation on the Europe-SA run with the best ever recorded liner analysis for time keeping according to the survey.
In the process it set one of the best ever transit time records with an average of 0.19 days delay, which the report says will become a benchmark for future surveys.
This is particularly remarkable given that it was hit by a one-two of considerable force back in the spring (SA autumn), with the South African port delays compounded by the ports dispute in Australia. Its schedule shredded, MSC responded by bringing in different ships to fill the gaps and by skipping some
Australian calls, and it managed to get back on track within two weeks.
The survey was conducted for the period 1 August 1998 to 31 January 1999.
By Terry Hutson
