Container shipping is currently marked by a decline in schedule reliability, which continues to impact global capacity, according to the latest analysis by Sea-Intelligence.

Recent data for March shows that, despite gradual improvements among some carriers, overall schedule reliability has not returned to pre-pandemic levels. The industry is stabilizing, but at a noticeably lower baseline.

From 2011 to 2019, schedule reliability ranged between 70% and 80%. Under current conditions, this figure remains at 50–65%. The average vessel delay has increased: before the pandemic, delays averaged three to four days, whereas now they are 4.5–5.5 days, further intensifying operational challenges for the sector.

The proportion of vessels arriving late, combined with the length of delays, allows for an assessment of the capacity effectively removed from the market due to schedule disruptions. Historically, about 2.2% of global capacity was unavailable for this reason, which was considered a stable baseline for balancing supply and demand. At present, the deviation from this level consistently stands 2–4% above the norm, with no signs of improvement.

As a result, the share of capacity lost due to delays has effectively doubled or even tripled, now reaching 4–6%. The average for the period 2023–2026 is 5.3%. In absolute terms, this means that approximately 1.8 million TEU of capacity is missing from the market due to schedule delays—comparable to the fleet size of the world’s seventh-largest container carrier.

Even when considering only the increase compared to pre-pandemic norms, the impact remains significant. The additional 3.1% of lost capacity is equivalent to about 1.06 million TEU, which is comparable to removing one of the top-10 carriers from global operations.