Global ocean schedule reliability declined anew in December, dropping -5.0 percentage points month/month (M/M) in the last month of 2023 amidst the Red Sea crisis.

Sea-Intelligence said in a report that December's decline is "the largest M/M drop since February 2021 — to 56.8%.

"With this, December 2023 schedule reliability was the second-lowest of 2023," said Alan Murphy, CEO of Sea-Intelligence.

On a year-on-year (Y/Y) level, the report said schedule reliability in December 2023 was only 0.4 percentage points higher than in December 2022.

Meanwhile, due to the round of Africa sailings, the average delay for late vessel arrivals deteriorated, increasing by 0.30 days M/M to 5.35 days. 

Evergreen: most reliable in December

Sea-Intelligence noted that Evergreen was the most reliable top-13 carrier in December 2023 with schedule reliability of 63.6%, followed by CMA CGM as the only two carriers above the 60% mark.

On the other hand, six carriers had schedule reliability of 50%-60%, while the remaining 5 carriers all had schedule reliability of 40%-50%.

Sea-Intelligence noted that Yang Ming is the "least reliable carrier" for December, with a schedule reliability of 45.6%.

"Because of the increased transit times round Africa, none of the top-13 carriers recorded an M/M improvement in schedule reliability, while only 4 carriers were able to record a Y/Y improvement," Murphy said.