As a leader in sea logistics, Kuehne+Nagel closely tracks and collects data on the movement of vessels, including actual arrivals and vessel delays. A summary of this analysis based on neutral data is published monthly in our Schedule Reliability Report, available on Sea News.
Executive Summary
Global on-time performance reached a new low of 44.2% in April. However, May witnessed a significant recovery, with reliability improving to 50.2%.
While this performance was not a full recovery to March's levels, May was the second-best performing month in 2024 so far.
Regarding vessel arrival delays, the average arrival delay of LATE vessels improved to 4.1 days, bouncing back from April's increase.
Similarly, ALL vessels returned to March levels, with an average delay of 1.9 days—a 0.4-day improvement.
Trade performance in April declined on seven of the 11 covered trades. Notably, trades involving Asia and the Mediterranean/Black Sea were most affected.
In May, almost all major trades showed signs of recovery, contributing to the overall improvement in global on-time performance.
The Mediterranean/Black Sea ↔ North America trade recorded the most significant improvement, recovering to levels seen in September 2023.
While improving, Asian trades didn't fully rebound to March levels. For instance, the Transpacific reached 54.5%, slightly below March's 55.9%.
In contrast, May was the best-performing month for the Transatlantic, which climbed to 62.8%.
Blank sailing data for May (weeks 18 to 22) recorded three blank sailings equivalent to 6.4% of offered capacity (April: 3.2%) on Asia-North Europe westbound.
The Transpacific eastbound recorded 28 blank sailings, translating to 10.1% of offered capacity (April: 4.8%). No blank sailings were recorded on the Transatlantic westbound (April: 3%).
Global On-Time Performance
As shown in the figure below, global on-time performance in April significantly dropped by seven percentage points to reach a 20-month low.
On a year-on-year basis, this April's performance was 19.9 percentage points lower than in April 2023.
While not fully recovering from the decline in April, schedule reliability improved by six percentage points last month to 50.2%.
Nevertheless, the year-on-year gap in performance remains wide.
As illustrated below, the monthly average arrival delay of LATE vessels increased to 4.4 days in April.
Interestingly, this aligns with delays recorded in February 2023, when reliability was 63.8%.
The year-on-year comparison notes a substantial difference of 0.8 days for April.
In May, the average arrival delay of LATE vessels improved to 4.1 days.
Seaexplorer analytics recorded similar levels of delay in January and March when global on-time performance was at 47.1% and 51.2%, respectively.
A year-on-year comparison shows that the average arrival of LATE vessels in May 2024 was 0.5 days higher than in May 2023.
For ALL vessels, the average arrival delay increased by 0.4 days to 2.3 days in April. Notably, this was the first time since September 2022 that the average delay exceeded two days.
However, May marked a positive shift. The monthly average arrival delay of ALL vessels improved by 0.4 days, fully recovering to March's levels of 1.9 days.
A year-on-year comparison reveals delays from February to May were at least 0.5 days higher than in 2023.
Reliability per Trade
In April, Asian and Mediterranean trades saw significant declines in their performance.
Specifically, Asia ↔ Oceania recorded the largest month-on-month drop, falling by 10.2 percentage points - from 44.1% in March to 33.9% in April.
Despite a 9% decline, the Transpacific trade maintained an on-time performance of more than 50% in April.
On a positive note, reliability on the Transatlantic increased slightly from 51.9% in March to 54.3%.
In May, reliability improvements were seen across all trades, except for Asia ↔ South America, which maintained its 52.9% recorded in April.
Among the trades involving the Mediterranean/Black Sea, there were double-digit month-on-month improvements following a sharp decline in April.
Of these, Mediterranean/Black Sea ↔ North America recorded the most significant improvement of 28.5 percentage points to reach 58%, recovering to September 2023 levels.
Asian trades, on the other hand, did not fully rebound to March levels despite notable gains.
Reliability on the Transatlantic
North Europe → North America
As illustrated below, the North-Europe - North America leg slightly improved in April to 43.9%.
Nevertheless, the average arrival delay of LATE vessels increased from 3.8 days in March to 4.3 days in April.
For ALL vessels, the average arrival delay increased by 0.3 days month-on-month to 2.5 days in April.
On a positive note, May recorded a sharp increase of 15.2 percentage points month-on-month, climbing to 59.1%.
Interestingly, the figure illustrates a similar development in 2023 when reliability rose by 13.5 percentage points from April to May 2023.
The average arrival delay of LATE vessels improved to 3.4 days in May, lower than the global average of 4.1 days.
Similarly, the average arrival delay for ALL vessels decreased to 1.4 days, which is also lower than the global average of 1.9 days.
North America → North Europe
Over the last months, the eastbound leg has shown significantly higher reliability than the westbound leg and overall global on-time performance.
In April, reliability recovered from 60.3% in March to 65.0%.
Despite the recovery, LATE vessels were delayed on arrival by an average of 3.6 days, 0.1 days higher than in March.
On the other hand, the average arrival delay for ALL vessels improved by 0.2 days to 1.2 days in April.
On-time performance marginally improved in May to 66% but was 7.4 percentage points lower than in May 2023.
Notably, the headhaul leg has rebounded closer to 2023 levels than the backhaul.
Seaexplorer analytics recorded an average arrival delay of LATE vessels of 3.3 days last month, a 0.3-day improvement compared with April.
The average arrival delay for ALL vessels was 1.1 days, 0.8 days lower than the global monthly average.
Methodology
Calculating the on-time performance
To calculate the on-time performance of a service, Kuehne+Nagel uses vessel schedules from carrier(s) offering that service. Only carrier schedules that match our quality criteria are used for the schedule reliability calculation.
As carriers update schedules constantly, they become more accurate the closer vessels get to a destination port. For this reason, we have implemented a "schedule freeze period" of 14 days prior to actual vessel arrival. In other words, we benchmark the actual arrival with what carriers last announced 14 days earlier. To identify the actual time of arrival, Kuehne+Nagel consumes AIS (Automatic Identification System) vessel data. All vessels which arrive within a +/- 24-hour window at the port of destination compared to the last announced arrival are considered to be on time.
Assigning carrier services to multiple trade lanes
Many services operate on various trade lanes (e.g. a carrier service between Asia and North Europe also calls ports in the Middle East and or the Mediterranean), and therefore carrier services may be listed in multiple trade lanes.
Definition of trade lanes
There is no common standard for the definition of trade lanes. This means, depending on the source, you will find different trade lanes as well as different regions, countries and ports assigned to a trade lane. Kuehne+Nagel has defined its own way of mapping and has assigned ports to these trade lanes accordingly. On-time performances of vessels are captured in our reports on defined main trades, meaning trades moving large container volumes on vessels. Therefore, niche trades and services within one trade, called "Intra Trade "services (e.g. Intra-Asia, Intra-Europe) are currently out of scope.
