OCEAN carrier schedule reliability continues to remain low hovering around the 40 per cent mark since March this year, according to the latest issue of the Global Liner Performance (GLP) report.

The report, which covers schedule reliability across 34 different trades lanes and more than 60 carriers, shows that despite continued port congestion, schedule reliability has not gotten any worse.

"However, it is still at a very low base, hovering around the 40 per cent mark since March 2021. In June 2021, schedule reliability improved marginally by 0.8 percentage point month on month to 39.5 per cent," said Alan Murphy, CEO, Sea-Intelligence.

On a year-on year level, schedule reliability was down a massive-38.2 percentage points. "The average delay for late vessel arrivals continued to deteriorate in June 2021, increasing by 0.38 days month on month to 6.41 days. The levelof delays in 2021 have been the highest across each month compared to previous years," said Mr Murphy.

Maersk Line was the most reliable top-14 carrier, with schedule reliability of 49.7 per cent. Three more carriers had schedule reliability higher than 40 per cent, with only two carriers between 30 per cent and 40 per cent, and rest under 30 per cent.

Wan Hai had the lowest schedule reliability in June 2021 of 21.2 per cent. Four carriers recorded a month-on-month improvement in June 2021, although the largest improvement recorded by Maersk Line was of just 3.9 percentage points.

The largest month-on-month decrease was of -4.6 percentage points recorded by Wan Hai. None of the top-14 carriers recorded a year-on-year/Y improvement in schedule reliability, with all carriers recording double-digit declines of over -31.0 percentage points.