by Manal Barakat, SeaNewsEditor
Sea-Intelligence recently published an analysis examining the performance of non-alliance services offered by members of carrier alliances.
The analysis highlights that Maersk and MSC have gained positive performance momentum, whereas the broader market has become more unpredictable.
The realignment of global shipping alliances that occurred in early 2025 included the dissolution of 2M, the formation of the Gemini Cooperation, the reconfiguration of THE Alliance, and MSC’s decision to operate independently.
These changes primarily targeted optimisation of the main East-West trade lanes but also raised questions about the impact on services outside major alliances.
Sea-Intelligence’s benchmarking of non-alliance services found that Maersk led in both improvement and absolute reliability, with a 6.3 percentage point increase and a reliability rate of 68.7%.
Meanwhile, Maersk’s partner, Hapag-Lloyd, despite a negative momentum of -8.4 percentage points, maintained a high absolute reliability of 61.8%, which is well above the market baseline of 54.7%.
Sea-Intelligence further notes that MSC recorded the second-largest improvement, at 5.4 percentage points, and achieved a reliability rate of 63.0%.
Conversely, members of the reshuffled Premier Alliance (HMM, ONE, and Yang Ming) experienced declines below the baseline.
However, the report also addresses service consistency.
“While average reliability is a key indicator, shippers often value consistency just as much. A predictable service, even if not the absolute fastest, allows for better planning across the supply chain,” writes the report.
Sea-Intelligence found that market volatility increased this year. Despite that, Hapag-Lloyd and MSC maintained stable services, with only marginal rises in volatility.
HMM also improved its consistency, reducing volatility from 6.7% in 2024 to 4.6% in 2025, despite a drop in average reliability.
The analysis firm concludes that the 2025 alliance changes led to a pronounced difference in carrier schedule reliability and a general rise in market unpredictability.
Kuehne+Nagel's latest reliability data reveals that global on-time performance increased slightly to 54.8% in September, representing an 8.0 percentage point improvement over the same month in 2024.
More details about the performance globally and on major trade lanes are available in the seaexplorer Schedule Reliability Report – September 2025.
