Vessel waiting times significantly improved during the last quarter of 2022, says maritime research consultancy Drewry. The consultancy expects this trend to improve further in the next few months. “After more than two years of widespread port congestion, we are beginning to see signs of improvement,” reports Drewry. Analysts highlighted that global waiting time at ports jumped from 17% of the total port time in 2019 to more than 25% in 2021 and 2022. Now, however, the waiting time levels are slowly aligning with pre-pandemic levels. While congestion eased at most ports, Drewry claims that by 4Q-2022, only the North America and Oceania regions continued to have vessel waiting times 10% higher than 2019 levels. In Europe, the level is now estimated as 16%, only 1.2% above the 2019 average for the region. The data provided by Drewry also shows that North American ports suffered the most in 2022 in terms of congestion. The average waiting time reached 38.5% of the total call duration in 2022, almost 26% higher than the 2019 average of 11.8%. In contrast, ports in Latin America had the lowest average waiting time in 2022 at 19.1% of total call time. The increase compared to the 2019 levels (16.9%) was marginal. The signs of improvement were clearly evident during the first weeks of 2023, says Drewry. The consultancy attributed this improvement to “reduced cargo demand, due to lower economic growth combined with a resumption of more normal seasonality.”