As a leader in sea logistics, Kuehne+Nagel closely tracks and collects data on the movement of vessels, including actual arrivals and vessel delays. Kuehne+Nagel will be publishing a summary of this analysis in monthly Schedule Reliability reports based entirely on neutral data. This summary is available within SeaNews in seaexplorer as well as in myKN for all Kuehne+Nagel customers and myKN subscribers.
(Note: seaexplorer received additional data after publishing last month’s report, leading to minor discrepancies in June’s schedule reliability levels.)
Global On-Time Performance
Since the beginning of 2023, we have been witnessing schedule reliability generally improve month-on-month. The level reached in July is the highest so far this year, reaching 70.4%. As shown in the graph below, the July 2022 level stood at 41.2%, which means the increase one year later nears 30 percentage points. The improvement is also significant compared to the beginning of this year, as it exceeded 15 percentage points from 52.8% in January.
Despite the increase in schedule reliability, the global monthly average delay in the arrival of LATE vessels remained the same in July at 3.4 days. However, the overall trend shows that this average is decreasing gradually. In January, the average was at its highest, with 4.6 days.
As for the monthly average delay in the arrival of ALL vessels, there is a substantial improvement. In July, the average dropped to 0.9 days from 1.2 days in June. Similar to LATE vessels, this average has been gradually improving month-on-month since the beginning of the year.
Reliability per Trade Lane
All three major trade lanes (Transpacific, Transatlantic, and Asia-North Europe) achieved a month-on-month improvement in July.
Schedule reliability increased 6.2 percentage points to 58.8% on the Transpacific, 5.9 percentage points to 79.7% on the Transatlantic, and 5.7 percentage points to 73.9% on Asia-North Europe.
Taking into consideration all main trades illustrated in the figure below, the on-time performance on the Mediterranean/Black Sea – South America route remained the highest this month despite dropping 1.8 percentage points to 87.2%.
Reliability on the North Europe - South America trade
Given the disruption occurring on the Panama Canal, we decided to take a closer look at the performance of vessels sailing between North Europe and South America. Interestingly, this trade had the sharpest drop in schedule reliability in July. Compared to June, the overall level on this route dropped 5.8 percentage points from 85.2% to 79.4% in July.
The percentage dropped month-on-month on both the eastbound (from 82.5% to 80.6%) and the westbound (from 83.1% to 78.4%).
Consistent with the reliability data on the westbound, the monthly average arrival delay of LATE vessels sailing from North Europe to South America increased significantly in the past two months. The graph below shows that the average hit its highest level in July (3.6 days) since the beginning of the year. The average delay increased by 0.2 days in June and further by 0.5 days in July.
Conclusion
After a slight drop in June, schedule reliability jumped 5.6 percentage points in July to 70.4%. This is the highest percentage we have seen this year, with a significant upturn from last year’s level (41.2%).
Global on-time performance improved for most trade lanes. The Mediterranean/Black Sea – South America remained the route with the highest schedule reliability at 87.2%. On the other hand, the Transpacific trade had the lowest on-time performance, with 58.8%, despite improving month-on-month by 6.2 percentage points.
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.
