According to Copenhagen-based Sea-Intelligence, average global carrier schedule reliability across 34 trade lines fell to just 50.1% last month.
November 2020 is the worst global score recorded since 2011. The second- and third-worst scores were recorded in September and October of this year.
Compared to previous data, carrier services were far more reliable, averaging 75.5% reliability in November of 2018 and 80% reliability in November of 2019.
The November data was particularly ominous for U.S. importers. In October and November, on-time arrivals were down to 28.6% in the Asia-West Coast trade and 26.4% in the Asia-East Coast trade.
In other words, for U.S. importers, it’s not a coin toss. The chance of avoiding ocean delays is less than one in three.
When asked about record lows in January, Sea-Intelligence CEO Alan Murphy was skeptical.
“It’s not impossible,” Murphy said. “Especially given what we’re seeing with [container] equipment shortages.”
In addition to more frequent delays, shippers are also noting that delays are getting longer.
Sea-Intelligence calculated that the average delay for late vessels rose to 5.1 days in November. In August, the average delay was only 4.51 days.
Murphy fears that this reliability slump could last well into the future.
“With news of widespread port congestion, and with carriers not letting off capacity-wise until at least Chinese New Year, shipping might not see improving schedule reliability until Q2 2020,” Murphy said.
