Carrier schedule report says reliability improved from August to October

New online report from Drewry, using CargoSmart schedule reliability data, finds Maersk and Hamburg Süd are best at keeping to published schedules.    Maersk Line and Hamburg Süd had the highest schedule reliability among container shipping lines in October, according to performance rankings published by the shipping consultancy Drewry.
   The rankings are a part of Drewry’s new online version of its Carrier Performance Insight report, developed in conjunction with the shipment management software provider CargoSmart.
   Drewry found that Maersk Line and Hamburg Süd were “by far the most reliable carriers” in the three months to October 2014 with overall on-time performances of 80.4 percent and 78.5 percent, respectively. The next best performing carrier was Cosco Container Lines at 69.9 percent, with its CKYHE Alliance partners Evergreen Line, “K” Line, Hanjin Shipping and Yang Ming not too far behind, in that order.
   Industry-wide containership reliability improved gradually in the three-month period to October. The latest data shows aggregate on-time performance for the Asia-Europe, transpacific and transatlantic trades improved to 64 percent in October, up from 63 percent in September and 55 percent in August.
   “It is a positive to see reliability improving, but the industry’s on-time performance is still unacceptably low for many shippers,” said Simon Heaney, senior manager of supply chain research at Drewry.
   Despite the steady monthly improvement, the rolling three-month performance (August-October) was lower than for the previous three months, at 60.6 percent versus 61.1 percent. The average deviation between the scheduled day of arrival and actual day of arrival remained at 1.1 day for the same period.
   The Asia-Europe trade was the least reliable during August-October, with only 58 percent of ships arriving on-time, compared to 62 percent in the transpacific and 77 percent in the transatlantic.
   Looking ahead, the recent drop in fuel prices could have some positive influence on reliability.
   “Lower fuel costs won’t immediately see containerships running at their design speeds,” Heaney said. “But at the very least carriers should now be more willing to speed up if they fall behind schedule.”
   Carrier Performance Insight uses Automatic Identification System data to measure on-time port arrivals against schedules on 350 different port pair combinations. The service provides carrier performance benchmarking on a port-to-port, trade lane, service and industry-wide basis, and is updated every month.
   CargoSmart and Drewry participated in an American Shipper webinar on how schedule reliability should factor into the carrier selections shippers and logistics services providers.