Sea-Intelligence, a leading provider of research and analysis on the global logistics industry, especially in container shipping, released the 149th edition of the Global Liner Performance (GLP) report, which provides data on schedule reliability up to and including December 2023. The report covers schedule reliability on 34 trade lanes and over 60 carriers.

During the Red Sea crisis, December 2023 witnessed a substantial 5.0% month-over-month drop in overall schedule reliability, marking the most significant decline since February 2021, settling at 56.8%, according to the report.

This makes December 2023 the second-lowest month for schedule reliability in the previous year. On a year-over-year basis, schedule reliability in December 2023 was only slightly higher by 0.4% compared to December 2022. The average delay of late vessel arrivals also increased by 0.30 days month-on-month to 5.35 days, attributed to departures on the Africa route.

In the last month of 2023, Taiwanese container liner Evergreen proved to be the most reliable among the top 13 carriers, with schedule reliability of 63.6%, closely followed by France's CMA CGM as the only two carriers to exceed the 60% threshold.

Six carriers achieved scheduling reliability within the 50%-60% range, while the remaining five carriers were between 40%-50%. Another Taiwanese carrier Yang Ming was identified as the least reliable carrier in terms of scheduling with 45.6% by December 2023.

"Due to increased transit times around Africa, none of the top 13 carriers recorded a month-on-month improvement in schedule reliability, while only 4 carriers were able to record a year-on-year improvement," said Alan Murphy, managing director of Sea-Intelligence.