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.
Global On-Time Performance
Seaexplorer's on-time performance data shows that schedule reliability dropped for a third consecutive month in January. It is worth noting that last month's downturn was more significant than in the previous two months.
The graph below illustrates that on-time performance declined 9.6 percentage points month-on-month to 47.1% in January. Similar levels were last seen in September 2022. A year-on-year comparison reveals a difference of 5.7 percentage points between January 2023 and January 2024.
Despite the significant decline in global on-time performance, the average arrival delay of LATE vessels increased by 0.2 days month-on-month.
Interestingly, the month-on-month increases in November and December 2023 were also 0.2 days.
As illustrated in the figure below, the average delay of LATE vessels in January 2024 was 0.5 days lower than in January 2023.
The global monthly average arrival delay of ALL vessels was 2 days, a 0.3-day increase compared to December 2023. This is only slightly higher than January 2023 but exceeds the average delays seen in any one month in 2023.
Reliability per Trade Lane
On-time performance deteriorated across all major trade lanes in January.
As expected, the trades most impacted by the situation in the Red Sea saw the most significant decline in their on-time performance.
Asia<->Mediterranean/Black Sea recorded the steepest drop from 61.9% in December to 39% in January, a decline of 22.9 percentage points. This made it the least reliable trade lane for the month. Following closely behind, on-time performance for Asia<->North Europe declined by 35% to 39.1%.
On the Transpacific, on-time performance dropped by around 12 percentage points month-on-month to 43.5% in January. On-time performance on the Transatlantic was on a similar level at 44.4%, resulting in a month-on-month decline of seven percentage points.
Of the 11 major trades, three South American trades, Asia<->South America, Mediterranean/Black Sea<->South America, and North Europe<-> South America, had on-time performances of more than 50% last month.
Mediterranean/Black Sea<-> South America was the best-performing trade, with schedule reliability of 76.8%.
Reliability on Asia<->North Europe
As illustrated in the graph below, reliability declined remarkably to 29.6% in January on Asia-North Europe westbound. This is a month-on-month decrease of 12 percentage points. For the year-on-year comparison, the difference is 24.8 percentage points.
The average arrival delay for LATE vessels increased by 0.4 days month-on-month to 4.4 days. For ALL vessels, the arrival delay increased by 0.6 days month-on-month to 3 days.
Blank sailing data shows that 7.8% of sailings were blanked on the westbound leg in weeks 1 to 5.
Asia-North Europe's eastbound reliability declined sharper than its westbound voyages. The on-time performance decreased by 24.3 percentage points to 43% compared with December 2023. As shown in the graph below, this is slightly higher than the levels seen a year ago.
The arrival delay of LATE vessels remained stable at 3.4 days in January. This is a slight improvement compared with 3.5 days for December. The arrival delay for ALL vessels increased significantly from 1.2 days in December to 2 days in January.
Conclusion
As mentioned in last month's report, vessels diverted in December around the Cape of Good Hope would arrive in January and thus be included in January data. The impact of this is visible in the on-time performance as illustrated in the graphs above.
Schedule reliability dropped to 47.1% last month, continuing the trend which began in November 2023. It is, however, worth noting that January's decline is more significant than those seen in November and December 2023.
In contrast to December, the downturn in performance in January occurred across all 11 major trade lanes. As expected, the trades most affected by the Red Sea situation had the greatest impact on their reliability.
The least reliable trades in January were Asia<->Mediterranean/Black Sea and Asia<->North Europe, with an on-time performance of 39% and 39.1%, respectively. These trades declined by around 20 percentage points month-on-month.
On Asia<->North Europe specifically, reliability decreased to 29.6% on the westbound leg and 43% on the eastbound. The performance of the westbound leg is significantly lower than that of January 2023 (54.4%), whereas the eastbound leg is more or less in line with January last year (40.8%).
Blank sailing data for January (Week 1 to 5) notes five blank sailings on Asia-North Europe westbound, resulting in a blanked capacity of 7.8%.
On Transatlantic westbound, seven sailings or 8.9% of capacity were blanked last month. The Transpacific eastbound recorded 29 blank sailings in January, reducing capacity on this trade lane by 9.6%.
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.
