Understanding the Effect of Tradeline Congestion on Containership Reliability
2020 disrupted the global supply chain in unpredictable ways and it appears 2021 has begun to follow suit. Containership reliability numbers have plummeted causing average shipment delays to increase. Within this post, we will discuss the cause and spread of this decline to ensure you understand the possible delays in current shipping schedules.
A Sharp Decrease in Reliability
During the last half of 2020, there was a widely apparent decline in the reliability of containerships arriving on-time. For the last 5 months, the reliability steadily declined to the lowest it has ever been reported since the benchmark was introduced by Sea Intelligence in 2011. In December of last year, it was reported that under half of the vessels had arrived on their scheduled arrival date whereas, during 2018 the same rate was well above 70%. Creating a significant drop in timely arrivals. In the year spanning from December 2019 to December 2020, the on-time arrival rate had a decline of over 30%. With these numbers, containership arrivals are more unpredictable than ever.
Tradeline Congestion Causes Reliability Decrease
The surge in demand that was brought on by a global lockdown has flooded ports worldwide and the capacity of significant tradelines has been reached. This congestion results in a slowing of all containership arrivals. Sea Intelligence Consulting chief executive Alan Murphy warns that “With continued widespread port congestion, and with carriers still not letting off capacity-wise (especially on the major trades) shippers might not see improving schedule reliability until the second quarter of 2021.” Meaning these delays will be present well into this newly began year.
The Spread of Reliability Decline Across Carriers
This decline is apparent across all carriers’ reported numbers for the last half of 2020. Within this time frame, there was not a single documented carrier that managed to improve their year to year reliability. Along with the decrease in reliability, comes a greater occurrence of vessels arriving later than expected. A vessel’s current average delay is reported to be around 5-6 days, as compared to last year’s average delay of about 4 days. Currently, within the US the decline in reliability is at its lowest. There is roughly a rate of less than 1 in 3 for containerships avoiding delays.
How Sheltered International Can Help
With these unpredictable declines, there is no time more critical than now to choose the best possible company for your shipping needs. With Sheltered International we can ensure the quickest and most reliable options for your company when current circumstances are not so reliable.
