by Priya Radünzel, SeaNewsEditor
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
Seaexplorer data shows global on-time performance declined to 47.3% in December, nearing January 2024 levels.
Furthermore, the average arrival delay of LATE and ALL vessels increased by 0.2 days, reaching 3.9 days and 1.9 days, respectively.
A full-year analysis reveals global schedule reliability averaged 47.7% in 2024, 16.6 percentage points lower than in 2023.
On a trade lane level, eight of the 11 major trades weakened their performance in December.
The Mediterranean/Black Sea↔South America trade route was the best-performing in December and throughout 2024, with a reliability of 65.8% in December and an average of 66.5% for the year.
Asia↔North Europe saw a sharp decline of 15.9 percentage points, falling to 41.6% in December. The average performance for this trade route in 2024 was 43.2%.
Blank sailing data (weeks 49-52) revealed that 3 sailings were blanked on the Asia→North Europe route, accounting for 2.9% of total capacity.
On the Asia→North America route, carriers announced 13 blanked sailings (3.7% of total capacity), with 4 to the East Coast and 9 to the West Coast.
The Transatlantic westbound route recorded 2 blanked sailings, representing 2.7% of total capacity.
Global On-Time Performance
Global on-time performance dropped to 47.3% in December, matching reliability recorded at the start of 2024.
The graph below shows overall reliability declined by 2.7 percentage points compared to November.
Year-on-year, last month's performance was 9.4 percentage points lower than in December 2023.
Notably, schedule reliability was stable in 2024 compared to the previous three years.
April recorded the lowest reliability at 44.2%, following the best-performing month, March, at 51.2%.
From June onwards, reliability remained within 4 percentage points of 50%.
Nevertheless, the 2024 average of 47.7% was 16.6 percentage points lower than 2023's 64.4%.
As shown in the figure below, the global monthly average arrival delay of LATE vessels in December reflected the decline in reliability.
The average increased by 0.2 days to 3.9 days in December, on par with delays recorded in December 2023.
For 2024, the average delay of LATE vessels was 3.9 days.
Similarly, the average delay of ALL vessels increased by 0.2 days to 1.9 days in December. For the full year 2024, the average was around 1.9 days.
Reliability per trade lane
Seaexplorer data recorded improvements in December on three of the 11 major trades: Asia↔North America, Asia↔Oceania, and Mediterranean/Black Sea↔South America.
Mediterranean/Black Sea↔South America saw the most considerable month-on-month improvement of 8.8 percentage points, reaching 65.8%, making it the best-performing trade for the month.
In contrast, Asia↔North Europe experienced a steep decline of 15.9 percentage points, dropping to 41.6%.
A full-year review reveals that Mediterranean/Black Sea↔South America was the best-performing trade in 2024, averaging 66.5%.
Asia↔North America averaged 52%, while North Europe↔North America recorded an average of 53.9%.
On the other hand, Asia↔North Europe averaged 43.2%, making it the second lowest performing trade for 2024, following Asia↔Medittereanean/Black Sea with 38.9%.
Reliability on Mediterranean/Black Sea↔South America
Since Mediterranean/Black Sea↔South America was the best-performing trade for December and 2024, we will examine its development more closely.
Southbound
The figure below illustrates the volatility seen on the southbound leg throughout the year.
Performance in this direction started 2024 on a strong note, peaking in March at 78.5%
The lowest-performing month was October, at 42%.
Despite a strong month-on-month improvement, this leg ended the year at 67.4%, 5.1 percentage points lower than January 2024 and 8.2 percentage points below December 2023.
The average schedule reliability for vessels sailing north in 2024 was 64.4% compared to 82.6% in 2023.
LATE vessels sailing in this direction arrived on average 3.8 days later in December, an improvement from 4.6 days in November.
Northbound
As illustrated below, the northbound leg began 2024 with 83.2% reliability but declined steeply to 57.8% in March.
It rebounded to 90.7% by September but fell to 64.1% in December, failing to recover to January levels.
December's performance was 2.1 percentage points higher than November's and 25.4 percentage points lower than the same month last year.
The average schedule reliability for vessels sailing north in 2024 was 70.3%, compared to 86.4% in 2023.
LATE vessels arriving at Mediterranean/Black Sea ports in December were, on average, 3.6 days delayed.
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.
A PDF version of this report can be found here.
