Vessel delays are continuing to remove a significant amount of effective container shipping capacity from the global market, with Sea-Intelligence estimating that around 1.7 million TEU is currently being absorbed by ongoing delays.
In its latest Sunday Spotlight analysis, Sea-Intelligence notes that global container vessel schedule reliability remains broadly stable at around 60–65%. This remains well below the 70–80% range typically seen during 2011–2019.
At the same time, vessels that arrive late are now experiencing delays of around 5–5.5 days, compared with the pre-pandemic norm of approximately 3–4 days. The combination of more vessels being delayed and longer delays means a greater share of available deep-sea container capacity is effectively taken out of circulation.
During the 2011–2019 period, Sea-Intelligence calculates that an average of 2.2% of global container shipping capacity was absorbed by delays. This was regarded as a relatively stable background level and formed part of the normal supply-demand balance.
The current figure has risen to 5.0% of global deep-sea capacity, meaning an additional 2.8% of vessel space is unavailable compared with the pre-pandemic baseline.
Based on the present size of the global fleet, the full 5% absorption rate equates to approximately 1.7 million TEU of unavailable capacity. Sea-Intelligence notes that a container fleet of this size would rank as the eighth largest globally, just behind Evergreen.
Looking only at the additional 2.8% above the historic baseline represents around 1.0 million TEU of capacity, an amount close to the total fleet capacity of HMM.
Source: Sea-Intelligence. This article is based on its latest Sunday Spotlight analysis. Readers can refer to the original Sea-Intelligence commentary for the full source material.
