The new alliances on the Asia-Europe route helped to push up the reliability of shipping lines recently, but the on-time levels were undercut by the lingering effects of the U.S. West Coast (USWC) port congestion, according to Drewry’s Carrier Performance Insight.
Drewry said the on-time percentage of liner services reliability improved slightly in February, but while a higher ratio of ships were hitting their schedules, for those that missed the berthing window the length of delay widened.
Some 55% of ships in the three key East-West trades arrived within more or less 24 hours from the advertised expected time of arrival (ETA), up by 6.6 percentage points against January’s historical low of 49%. The average deviation from the ETA to actual arrival extended from 1.9 days in January to 2.1 days.
The most reliable carrier in February was Maersk Line with an average on-time performance of 76%, the same as in January. Some 10 points adrift were Cosco on 66%, Evergreen on 65%, and “K” Line with 63%. At the bottom of the rankings were Wan Hai (38%) and PIL (14%).
“The monthly on-timer percentage improvement was the result of higher reliability in the Asia-Europe trade, which seems to have benefited from more settled services now that the new alliance structures are in full swing,” said Simon Heaney, senior manager of supply chain research at Drewry.
“The trans-Pacific trade continued to suffer despite the mid-month resolution to the US West Coast labor contract dispute and was largely responsible for the longer overall deviation,” Heaney added.
To highlight the impact of the USWC labor dispute on reliability, out of the 743 trans-Pacific ships calling at either Los Angeles or Long Beach during February, only 8% arrived as planned, with the average deviation a huge 10.7 days. In January the same figures were 17% and 4.2 days respectively.
“The end of the USWC labor dispute and the bedding in of new alliance services should mean that reliability has hit the floor and will improve in the coming months, albeit slowly,” said Heaney.
Drewry’s new Carrier Performance Insight benchmarks the reliability performance of container carriers on a port-to-port, trade lane, service and industry-wide basis.
