Container shipping reliability declines as vessel capacity remains tight

Global container shipping reliability declined in June, falling 1.9 percentage points to 62.6 percent. This figure remains 4.7 percentage points lower than the previous year. While the average delay for late-arriving vessels shortened slightly to 5.31 days, more vessels are missing scheduled arrivals overall.

Spare vessel capacity remains extremely tight, with commercially idle ships accounting for only 0.6 percent of the 34.1 million TEU global cellular fleet. This lack of buffer capacity leaves carriers with limited ability to absorb further geopolitical or operational disruptions. Approximately 141,740 TEU remains unavailable due to ongoing situations in the Middle East.

Data from Sea-Intelligence indicates that approximately 5.0 percent of global deep-sea capacity is currently tied up in delays, a significant increase from the 2.2 percent industry norm seen between 2011 and 2019. This structural shift effectively absorbs 1.7 million TEUs of capacity, a volume comparable to the size of the world's eighth-largest container shipping company.