Global schedule reliability dropped to a record low of 50.1% in November, according to statistics released by Sea-Intelligence.
This is the fourth consecutive month that it has been the lowest across all months since the maritime consultancy introduced the benchmark in 2011, says CEO Alan Murphy.
“Compared to November 2019, schedule reliability is -29.8 percentage points lower, and it’s the fourth consecutive month that we have recorded a double-digit Y/Y decline,” says Murphy. There’s been a similar trend with the average delay for late vessel arrivals, he adds, which have recorded consecutive M/M increases for the past three months, reaching 5.10 days in November. “The 2020 figure for the average delay for late vessel arrivals has been the highest overall in each month since April 2020.”
In November, Hamburg Süd was the most reliable carrier, recording 61.5% reliability. However, it’s evident in figure 3 how significant the deterioration is compared to November 2019. Only Cosco and OOCL recorded a M/M improvement, whereas none of the carriers recorded a Y/Y improvement. Hamburg Süd recorded the smallest decline of a staggering -27.0 percentage points.
“This slump in schedule reliability coincided with the carriers’ introduction of capacity on the major trade lanes above and beyond what we have seen before,” says Murphy. “With news of widespread port congestion, and with carriers not letting off capacity wise (especially on the major trades) until at least Chinese New Year, shippers may not see improving schedule reliability until Q2 in 2021.”
