Container line schedule reliability continued to hover at its lowest level — sustaining the decline for the sixth consecutive month according to Sea-Intelligence.

The maritime analyst noted that global container line schedule reliability plunged to 34.9% in January 2021 as carriers continued to face port congestion issues on the US West Coast and a spike in demand on most trade lanes.

The Sea-Intelligence schedule reliability report covers 34 different trades lanes and more than 60 carriers, and it noted that for the past six months the index has been hovering at its lowest level across all months since the benchmark was introduced in 2011. 

Schedule reliability in January 2021 was 33.5 percentage points lower than the same month in 2020. It said the January results was also the sixth consecutive month that of a double-digit year-on-year decline recorded.

The average delay for late vessels — which has shown consecutive month-on-month increases for the past five months — reached 6.42 days in January 2021, according to the Sea-Intelligence report.

Hamburg Sud most reliable liner in January 2021

Meanwhile, the maritime analyst named Hamburg Sud as the most reliable line in terms of schedule reliability in January 2021, although it still noted a "significant deterioration" in its performance compared to January 2020.

Hamburg Sud's schedule reliability was at 46.5% in January this year, while the worst performer for that month was HMM. COSCO recorded the largest decline month-on-month.

"None of the carriers recorded a M/M or a Y/Y improvement in schedule reliability. COSCO recorded the largest M/M decline of -13.9 PP (one of the 9 carriers with a double-digit decline) while HMM recorded the largest Y/Y decline of -53.3 PP (with all carriers recording double-digit declines)," the Sea-Intelligence report said.

Looking ahead SeaIntel does not see any short-term improvement in container line schedule reliability.

“With continued widespread port congestion, and with carriers still not letting off capacity-wise (especially on the major trades) not even for Chinese New Year, shippers might not see improving schedule reliability anytime soon,” said Alan Murphy, CEO of Sea-Intelligence.