Schedule reliability
for containerships is continuing to improve in 2022 despite the persistence of
backlogs in some ports and the effects of the COVID-19 related restrictions
impacting Shanghai, the world’s largest container port. New data from analytics
firm Sea-Intelligence in their monthly Global Liner Performance report shows
that for the third consecutive month reliability improved returning to the
average for all of 2021.
“Global schedule reliability continues to slowly creep
upwards, recording a marginal month-over-month improvement yet again,” said
Alan Murphy CEO of Sea-Intelligence. The data shows that slightly more than a
third (35.9 percent) of all containerships across the 34 different trade lanes
tracked by the analysts were on schedule bringing the average for the first
quarter of 2022 up to 33.5 percent. “Despite being the highest 2022 reliability
figure so far, the March 2022 score is still slightly below the 2021 level,”
notes Murphy. The average for the first quarter of 2021 was 36.5 percent.
The largest 14 carriers, reported strong monthly gains with
a better than three percent improvement over February. Yet, on a year-over-year
basis, they were off nearly 10 percent from March 2021 with 11 of the 14
largest carriers reporting declines in schedule reliability. Only Maersk,
Hamburg Süd, and Evergreen were able to achieve slight improvements year-over-year.
Maersk continues to lead the industry with half of its vessels on schedule
while Hamburg Süd retains second place with 45 percent schedule reliability.
Declines in volumes and the ports' efforts to clear backlogs
and space out arrivals have contributed to the overall improvements and
especially for the U.S. West Coast. Services to the U.S. West Coast, where the
major ports implemented programs encouraging vessels to make reservations and
slow steam to port showed nearly twice the improvement versus the U.S. East
Coast routes. This also corresponds to the reports of increased volumes of
containers coming through the East Coast in part as shippers began rerouting
their cargos due to the strong backlogs at West Coast ports at the beginning of
the year.
Sea-Intelligence is also reporting the third consecutive
month of declines in the average delays for vessels. Since the beginning of
2022, the average delay has declined by nearly three-quarters of a day but
remains at 7.25 days.
“Despite the improvement, the average delay figure has now
been over seven days since August 2021, and continues to be the highest across
each month when compared historically,” says Murphy.
The U.S. West Coast ports, however, reported the strongest
improvements with the days behind schedule leveling off between the West and
East coast routes, averaging just over 12 days on both coasts. These levels
however are near twice the average for all routes.
Industry observers have also begun to worry about the
potential for rising delays when Shanghai begins to relax its restrictions. At
the same time, retailers are expected to bring forward shipments earlier into
2022 both to avoid potential delays if there are labor actions on the West
Coast when the longshoremen’s contracts expire this summer and in an effort to
avoid the delays they experienced in 2021.