After months of reports of delays and bottlenecks as volumes
strained the global shipping industry, the worst appears to have passed.
According to new data from analytics firm Sea-Intelligence while reliability
and delays are still prevalent, there however was a marked improvement in
schedule reliability and the first signs of reversing the deteriorating trend
for late-arriving vessels. The data is also supported by anecdotal reports at
ports around the globe.
Sea-Intelligence published issue 116 of its Global Liner
Performance (GLP) report, with schedule reliability figures up to and including
March 2021. The report covers schedule reliability across 34 different trade
lanes and 60-plus carriers.
Global schedule reliability showed its first
month-over-month improvement reaching just over 40 percent, a nearly six
percent improvement from the prior month. That still however means that only
four out of every ten containerships arrived in port on schedule.
“It seems as if the worst has passed,” said Alan Murphy,
CEO, Sea-Intelligence. “That said, there is a long way to go to reach the
levels of the previous years, as this was still the lowest schedule reliability
for April in the 10 years that we have measured schedule reliability. Versus
2020, it is a sharp gap down 29.9 percentage points.”
The average delay for late vessel arrivals also reversed its
deteriorating trend, according to the latest report. The March 2021 figure is
0.79 days lower month-over-month, but it remains higher by 1.42 days versus the
year ago. At 6.16 days, late arrivals were still the highest ever for March.
“The average delay in the first quarter of 2021 was higher
than the extraordinary high delays caused by the U.S. West Coast labor dispute
in the first quarter of 2015,” said Murphy. “It was also the highest for each
month in all months since April 2020.”
The Sea-Intelligence report also traces the performance of
the major carriers. Only three of the shipping companies, Maersk, Hamburg Süd,
and Wan Hai, had better than 40 percent schedule reliability, with nearly all
the carriers registering between 30 and 4 percent schedule reliability. Maersk
had the highest figure with nearly half of its ships arriving on time.
All carriers recorded a month-on-month improvement in
schedule reliability, but none recorded a year-over-year improvement in March
2021. Wan Hai recorded the largest monthly improvement of 17.6 percentage
points while HMM recorded the largest year-on-year decline of a staggering
decline of 45.4 percentage points, according to Sea-Intelligence.
The San Pedro Bay port complex is a good example of the
improvements and remaining challenges. The Maritime Exchange of Southern
California which overseas movements into and port of the ports of Los Angeles
and Long Beach reported yesterday that combined 100 vessels were in the two
ports. A total of 23 containerships were in the anchorage with 21 awaiting
berths, which is down from the peak of over 60 at the end of January 2021. With
nine of the box ships currently waiting for terminal space at the Port of Los
Angeles, the average wait time is still reported at 7.7 days, but currently all
but one of the vessels has been at anchor between one and four days, with only
the Ever Legend waiting 10 days.
The major carriers are also continuing to reroute services
to avoid congestion. Last year, MSC, for example, announced that it would join
other major carriers who have diverted ships away from the southern California
ports. MSC’s Santana route starting in mid-May will reroute to Yantian –
Shanghai – Tacoma – Yantian, substituting the Pacific Northwest port for
Southern California.