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

Global schedule reliability rose to 56.3% in May, up 8.2 percentage points from April and 6.1 percentage points year-on-year.

The average arrival delay of LATE vessels dropped to 4.2 days, and the delay for ALL vessels improved to 1.6 days.

All major trades showed positive developments, with reliability ranging from 50.1% to 74.1%. For several routes, May marked the best performance for the year so far.

The Mediterranean/Black Sea↔South America trade was the most reliable, followed by North America↔South America.

Additionally, 10 of the 11 trades saw year-on-year improvements.

Blank sailing data (weeks 19-22) recorded six void sailings on Asia→North Europe, accounting for 7.0% of total capacity.

On Asia→North America, carriers announced 48 blanked sailings, accounting for 23.6% of total capacity, with 17 to the East Coast and 31 to the West Coast.

The Transatlantic westbound route recorded three blank sailings to the US East Coast (3% of capacity), and two to the West Coast (17% capacity).

Global On-Time Performance

Global on-time performance climbed to 56.3% in May, the highest level since March 2024.

As shown in Figure 1, this marks an 8.2 percentage point improvement from the previous month and a 6.1 percentage point year-on-year gain.

 In May, LATE vessels arrived an average of 4.2 days behind schedule, an improvement of 0.4 days from the previous month and a slight gain over May 2024.

Figure 3 shows a similar downward trend for ALL vessels, but with a more pronounced improvement, decreasing to 1.6 days.

Notably, delays of less than 1.7 days were last recorded in 2023.

 Compared to May 2024, overall delays were 0.3 days shorter last month.

Reliability per Trade Lane

All 11 major trades saw improvements in schedule reliability during May, with performance ranging from 50.1% to 74.1%.

As highlighted in the table below, several trades achieved their best reliability figures of the year in May.

Mediterranean/Black Sea↔North America recorded the highest month-on-month gains of 15.7 percentage points.

However, Mediterranean/Black Sea↔South America remained the best-performing trade last month.

Despite a 2.7 percentage point gain, Asia↔Oceania was the least reliable.

A comparison with May 2024 reveals reliability improved across 10 of the 11 trades.

Asia↔North Europe posted the most notable year-on-year improvement, rising by 14.7 percentage points to reach 57.3%.

In addition, May was the best monthly performance for this trade so far.

Reliability on Asia ↔ North Europe

Westbound

Asia↔North Europe recorded the strongest year-on-year improvement in May, with reliability rising 14.7 percentage points to 57.3%.

A closer look at Asia→North Europe shows steady improvement over the past three months, following a similar trend to 2023.

In May, reliability rose to 59.8%, a 9.7 percentage point increase from April and a 20.9 percentage point gain year-on-year.

This marks the highest reliability on this leg since October 2023.

LATE vessels sailing in this direction averaged 4.2 days behind schedule, while the overall average delay across ALL vessels was 1.5 days.

Eastbound

On the backhaul, reliability rose to 56.3% in May, a 16.9 percentage point improvement compared to April.

As shown below, May 2025 reliability outperformed the same month last year.

Consequently, average delays fell to 4.6 days for LATE vessels and 1.8 days across ALL vessels.

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. Port call omissions and blank sailings announced after the 14-day freeze are excluded from the calculation.

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.

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