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In December 2024, global schedule reliability dropped by 0.9 percentage points from the previous month to 53.8%, according to Issue 161 of Sea-Intelligence’s Global Liner Performance (GLP) report, which covers schedule reliability across 34 different trade lanes and 60-plus carriers
Throughout 2024, schedule reliability largely remained within the 50%-55% range, although, on a year-on-year scale, it was 3 percentage points lower in December 2024. It was, however, slightly lower than the average of 55% in the last six years and much lower than the 2023 average of 62%. Yemen’s Houthis began assaulting commercial vessels in November 2024, urging containerships to make lengthy detours around the Cape of Good Hope. The decline in schedule reliability last year was mainly due to such shipping lane alternations.
Maersk was the most reliable carrier of the top 13 in December 2024 with a schedule reliability rate of 60.4%. There were six more carriers with schedule reliability rates of 50%-60%, with the remaining six were within a narrow 47%-50% range. Wan Hai Lines was the least reliable with a 47.9% schedule reliability rate. The difference between the most and least reliable carriers dropped to under 13 percentage points. Only four of the top 13 global carriers recorded month-on-month improvements in schedule reliability, with ZIM recording the largest increase of six percentage points. At a year-on-year level, only six carriers recorded improvements, while Evergreen was the only carrier incurring a double-digit decline.
The average delay decreased by 0.23 days from the previous month to 5.28 days in December, the lowest figure since July 2024. On a year-on-year scale, the December 2024 figure was 0.12 days lower. In 2024, the average was 5.43 days, shorter than those of the pandemic years of 2021 and 2022 but longer than that in the last five years.
