Global shipping schedule reliability improved by 3.8 percentage points month-on-month (M/M) in May, marking its highest year-to-date level.

Sea Intelligence said in a new report that in May, shipping schedule reliability reached 55.8%.

It noted, however, that on a year-to-year (Y/Y) level, schedule reliability in May 2024 was 11.0 percentage points lower.

"This is now the highest schedule reliability figure for 2024, and 1.2 percentage points higher than the previous highest figure of 54.6%," the Danish maritime data analysis company said.

Despite the improvement in schedule reliability, Sea Intelligence noted that the average delay for late vessel arrivals deteriorated, increasing by 0.34 days M/M to 5.10 days.

"This figure is now inching closer to the pandemic highs than the pre-pandemic lows," the new analysis said, adding that on a Y/Y level, the May 2024 figure was 0.73 days higher. 

For the period, Sea Intelligence said CMA CGM was the most reliable top-13 carrier with schedule reliability of 57.1%.

[Source: Sea-Intelligence]

Seven more carriers were above the 50% mark, and the remaining five carriers were in the 40%- 50% range.

Sea Intelligence noted that PIL was the least reliable carrier, with a schedule reliability of 44.5%.

Meanwhile, 10 of these carriers were able to record an M/M improvement in schedule reliability in May 2024, with Maersk and CMA CGM recording the highest improvement of 6.0 percentage points.

Wan Hai recorded the largest decline of -4.5 percentage points.

On a Y/Y level, none of the 13 carriers recorded an increase in schedule reliability, with 8 carriers recording double-digit Y/Y declines.