An indicator of the container service reliability is the accuracy and precision of the carriers' execution of the cargo delivery schedule.

This index broke a new anti-record in January, having worsened by almost 2 times compared to 2020, to less than 35%, Lloyd's List reported, citing a new report from SeaIntelligence Consulting.

According to the new Monthly Container Line Service Quality Monitor released by Sea-Intelligence, the global average container line scheduling reliability index declined 33.5 pp last month. The index value has been decreasing every month since August. The report also indicates that ship delays are on the rise in parallel. The average duration of ships idle in ports has grown every month since September and reached almost 6.5 days in January.

In terms of lines, the highest reliability index in January 2021 was recorded for Hamburg Süd - 46.5%, followed by Maersk with a small margin.

For comparison, the indices of these operators were equal to 79 and 76% in January last year. The quality of service showed no positive dynamics for any carrier.

In January COSCO showed the largest decline in the index compared to the previous month -– 13.9 p / p. At the same time, the Chinese line did not stand out much against the general background: for eight more carriers, the rate of decline in the service reliability index exceeded 10%. On an annualized basis, the largest decline in the index was shown by the Korean line HMM - 53.3 p / p, down only 20%.

Colleagues from Sea-Intelligence Alan believe that the situation is unlikely to improve significantly shortly, as congestions in the ports persist, and carriers have not reduced capacity.