Container vessel affected by congestion and delays at Asian ports

Delays have made 8.5% of the global container fleet temporarily unavailable,
removing capacity equal to the world’s fifth-largest container carrier from the market.
The figures come from new data from analytics firm Sea-Intelligence, which expects
the problems are unlikely to be fully resolved before the peak season ahead of
Chinese New Year in early 2027.

Roughly 3 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU) are tied up in delays. A fleet of
that size would rank between Cosco and Hapag-Lloyd.

The main cause is a series of typhoons that have struck major Asian ports, leading to
vessel queues, cargo buildup, and delays for container ships.
Schedule reliability fell to just below 50% in August, after dropping a total of 12.7
percentage points in only two months. Carriers’ reliability has suffered a steeper
decline over a comparable period only three times since Sea-Intelligence began its
measurements in 2011.
Late vessels arrived an average of 6.8 days behind schedule, the highest level outside
the worst periods of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The increase in average delay from June to August is also the largest Sea-Intelligence
has recorded in the 15 years it has collected data.

Could last into 2027

Before the pandemic, delays typically absorbed about 2.2% of global capacity. The
current share is more than six percentage points above that historical baseline and is
noticeably affecting the global balance of supply and demand, according to SeaIntelligence.
Only during the pandemic, from November 2020 to January 2021, did the amount of
tied-up capacity climb faster than in recent months.
The typhoons are a seasonal and therefore temporary problem. However, several
carriers have warned that some of the congestion may become more permanent
because of a structural shortage of capacity at ports and in their hinterland
connections.
Based on previous crises, Sea-Intelligence estimates it could take seven to 10 months
to bring congestion back to June 2025 levels. Even a return to the situation at the end
of 2025 is expected to take six to eight months.
That creates a significant risk that the problems will be only partly resolved when
cargo volumes rise ahead of Chinese New Year on Feb. 6, 2027.
The decline in reliability affects a key competitive factor in container shipping. Maersk
and Hapag-Lloyd have made reliability a core goal of their Gemini alliance, which aims
for more than 90% of its vessels to arrive on time.

Source: https://shippingwatch.com/carriers/Container/article19683606.ece