Global ocean schedule reliability improved by 3.6 percentage points month-on-month (M/M) in February to 54.9%, the highest level recorded since May 2024, according to a recent Sea-Intelligence report.

The Danish maritime consultancy firm noted that on a year-on-year (Y/Y) level, the February 2025 score was higher by 1.8 percentage points.

In February 2025, Maersk was the most reliable top-13 carrier, with a schedule reliability of 60.2%, followed by MSC at 57.4% and Hapag-Lloyd at 57.3%.

Sea-Intelligence pointed out that two new carrier alliances, Gemini Cooperation and Premier Alliance, launched in February 2025, while 2M and THE Alliance will be phased out in the coming months. Ocean Alliance will continue to operate as is.

It noted that while MSC is not an alliance, the fact that they are going solo on East/West trades and the vastness of its operated East/West network means that it cannot be overlooked in an alliance context.

The analysis noted that February 2025 measurements for the three new alliances are only for port calls in the origin regions of the East-West trades, as none of the vessels in the new alliances crossed their respective trades in February.

Gemini Cooperation recorded 94.0% schedule reliability in origin ports in February 2025, followed by MSC at 79.6% and Premier Alliance at 60.4%.

Ocean Alliance recorded 54.1% schedule reliability, while the outgoing THE Alliance and 2M scored 45.3% and 44.2%, respectively.

"It is important to stress that the new alliances are just in the beginning phase of their network roll-out, and they will only be fully rolled out in July 2025, and only then will it be possible to truly evaluate their performance," said Alan Murphy, CEO of Sea-Intelligence.

"It is nevertheless an interesting data point to see how they have performed on the initial origin arrivals," he added.