Ocean Carrier Reliability Drops

The Red Sea crisis has led to a decline of 5.0 percentage points to 56.8 per cent in ocean carrier schedule reliability in December 2023 compared to the previous month. This was the largest month-on-month drop since February 2021 and December’s 2023 schedule reliability was the second-lowest of 2023.

On a year-on-year level, schedule reliability in December 2023 was only 0.4 percentage points higher than in December 2022, according to Sea-Intelligence Maritime Analysis.

Due to the round-of-Africa sailings, the average delay for LATE vessel arrivals deteriorated, increasing by 0.30 days month-on-month to 5.35 days.

With 63.6 per cent schedule reliability in December 2023, Evergreen was the most reliable top-13 carrier, followed by CMA CGM. They were the only two carriers above the 60 per cent mark.

Six carriers had schedule reliability of between 50 and 60 per cent, while the remaining five carriers all had schedule reliability of between 40 and 50 per cent.

Yang Ming was the least reliable carrier with December 2023 schedule reliability of 45.6 percent. Because of the increased transit times around Africa, none of the top-13 carriers recorded a month-on-month improvement in schedule reliability, while only four carriers were able to record a year-on-year improvement.