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 is 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.
Global On-Time Performance
November data shows that schedule reliability dropped significantly after several months of stability. The drop was also reflected in the performance of individual carriers and on trade routes.
According to seaexplorer data, last month’s global on-time performance was the second-lowest percentage seen this year.
The graph below reveals that schedule reliability reached 60.8%, dropping 7.9 percentage points from October. This is the lowest level registered since February 2023.
Interestingly, this percentage is not very far from the percentage in November 2022, which was 56.3%.
Despite this sudden drop, the monthly average delay in the arrival of LATE vessels did not increase dramatically.
Compared to October, the monthly average increased by only 0.2 days to 3.7 days.
This average has remained relatively stable since March this year, as delays ranged between 3.8 and 3.4 days throughout the last three quarters.
For ALL vessels, the global monthly average delay in arrival had a slightly higher increase compared to LATE vessels.
The figure increased by 0.3 days month-on-month to reach 1.4 days in November. This average is almost on par with last year’s, at 1.5 days in November 2022.
Reliability per Trade Lane
For trade lanes, the data shows that last month’s global decrease had a major effect on all lanes except for the Transpacific.
The schedule reliability on the Transpacific increased by 4.3 percentage points to 59.5% from October’s 55.2%.
In contrast, the on-time performance of vessels on the Transatlantic dropped by 14.5 percentage points from 68.2% to 53.7% in November.
A similar drop occurred for the Asia-North Europe trade, where the percentage decreased 11.8 percentage points month-on-month to 61.9%.
Of the main trade lanes shown in the graph below, the route that had the highest drop was the North Europe – South America trade, which dropped 26 percentage points to 56.4% compared to October’s 82.4%.
Reliability on the Transpacific
Given that the Transpacific was the only trade with a positive development, we take a closer look at the on-time performance of vessels on this route.
On the eastbound, we see that the on-time performance increased by nearly 5 percentage points to 48.5%. This figure is the third-highest seen this year for this leg.
LATE ships travelling from Asia to North America had a monthly average arrival delay of 3.6 days. Seaexplorer data further shows that this figure decreased by almost half a day compared to last month.
An increase in schedule reliability is also seen on the westbound leg of the Transpacific. Compared to October, the percentage gained 2.1 percentage points, reaching 64.9%.
The monthly average arrival delay of LATE vessels on this leg had a slight month-on-month increase from 3.3 days to 3.4 days.
Conclusion
In short, November has seen a sudden change in the global on-time performance, dropping nearly eight percentage points to 60.8%.
The drop occurred across all main trade lanes, with the exception of the Transpacific, which was the only trade with positive progress.
In addition, seaexplorer data shows a dramatic decrease in the schedule reliability of vessels on the North Europe – South America route, where the level dropped 26 percentage points.
Blank sailings data covering the month of November (weeks 44 to 48) shows that carries blanked nearly 20% of the total offered capacity on the westbound leg of the Asia-North Europe trade.
On the eastbound of the Transpacific, carriers announced 25 blanked sailings during that period, representing nearly 8% of the total capacity offered.
In contrast, the figures were significantly lower for the westbound leg of the Transatlantic, where only 0.8% of the capacity was blanked.
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.
