Globally, schedule reliability has been pretty poor in all of 2021 as several ports and regions have been severely impacted by port congestion. In issue 520 of the Sunday Spotlight, we looked at the number of vessel arrivals subject to extreme delays i.e. delays of over 7 calendar days.

As can be seen in figure 1, on Asia to North America West Coast, at its peak, vessel arrivals that were 7‑13 and 14‑20 days late was higher than at the height of the 2015 US West Coast labour dispute. In January-May 2021, a staggering 695 vessel arrivals were over a week late, of which 343 vessel arrivals were more than 14 days late, with 132 of the vessel arrivals being more than 21 days late. For comparison, from January 2012 to December 2020, 1,535 vessel arrivals were more than a week late, 330 were more than 2 weeks late, and a combined 104 vessel arrivals were over 21 days late.

On Asia-North Europe, 461 vessel arrivals were more than 7 days late in January-May 2021, of which 134 were more than 14 days late, and 30 were more than 21 days late. This is compared to 792 vessel arrivals being more than 7 days late in the 9-year period from January 2012 to December 2020. In the same period, 35 vessel arrivals were more than 14 days late, and just two vessel arrivals were more than 21 days late.

Port congestion is far from over, that much is clear by our analysis. In just May 2021, 174 vessels that berthed in North American ports on the Transpacific trade were over 7 days late. On Asia-Europe, the number was 114. On Transatlantic, the number was 169, while it was 99 on the Asia-Indian Subcontinent trade and 134 on Asia-Oceania. This is a staggering amount of late vessel arrivals.

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 All quotes can be attributed to: Alan Murphy, CEO, Sea-Intelligence.
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