Box line reliability reaches new low

THE start-up of new alliances and US west coast port congestion conspired to push January’s container schedule reliability to an all-time low level.

Figures released by SeaIntel Maritime Analysis show that schedule reliability dropped to 67.8\% in January from 71.2\% in December. It is also lower than the reliability levels recorded in January 2012, 2013 and 2014.

Maersk Line was the most reliable individual carrier with an on-time performance of 80.2\% for the month, Hamburg Süd was second with an 80\% on-time rate and CSAV was third with 78.5\%.

The bottom three carriers were Yang Ming, United Arab Shipping Co and Evergreen, none of which managed an on-time level above 65\%.

SeaIntel shipping analyst Morten Berg Thomsen said: “It is clear that congestion on the US west coast continues to have a further negative effect on carriers’ on-time performance.

“There seems to be no end to how low schedule reliability can go, but it is clear that some carriers are better to cope with the challenges on the US west coast than others.

“With the labour dispute in the west coast ports seemingly resolved, we should expect to see an improvement in performance later in the year, but it will take several months before the backlog is cleared.”

The analyst said that adjustments to schedules as the 2M and Ocean Three alliances got underway was another contributory factor to the decline in performance.

Reliability in the transpacific eastbound trade lane decreased for the sixth consecutive month to 42.5\%.

The Asia-North Europe trade lane and the Asia-Mediterranean trade saw on-time performance drop to 68.6\% and 68.7\%, respectively.

NYK, HMM, Hapag-Lloyd and Zim were the only four carriers who managed to improve their scores in January.

source:loydsloadinglist.com