Liner reliability dips slightly in November

   Global liner schedule reliability declined from 84 percent in October to 82 percent in November, according to figures released this week by the maritime analyst SeaIntel.
   However, despite a downturn in vessel on-time arrival percentage, the actual delivery time of containers improved from October to November, SeaIntel said.
   Based on analysis of 1 million daily container status messages from SeaIntel’s partner INTTRA, 68 percent of all containers were delivered on time in November, when measured against the delivery promised the shipper on the booking confirmation, a 2 percent improvement from October.
   On the Asia-Europe trade, vessels had an average on-time arrival performance of 88 percent, with 87 percent of containers delivered on time.
   “These high performance figures represent a systematic improvement seen during the course of 2012, and certainly provides a welcome improvement for shippers relying on timely services,” SeaIntel said. “Shippers should, however, still be aware that differences on schedule reliability do abound even on a high-performing trade such as Asia-Europe. In November, performance varied from 76 percent to 99 percent across the 20 carriers measured by SeaIntel on the Asia-North Europe trade.”
   Mediterranean Shipping Co. continued its performance improvement throughout 2012, SeaIntel noted, rising from being the lowest performer at the start of the year to the fourth best in November, at 90 percent. Maersk Line retained its position as best performer, at 99 percent schedule reliability on the Asia-North Europe trade.
   The schedule reliability data is based on SeaIntel’s database of 10,000 monthly arrivals across 250 ports and more than 50 carriers. – Eric Johnson