Global schedule reliability drops below 50% in August

Global schedule reliability fell sharply again in August 2026, dropping below 50% as severe port congestion in Asia continued to disrupt liner shipping performance.

According to Sea-Intelligence’s latest Global Liner Performance (GLP) report, schedule reliability declined by 5.9 percentage points month on month to 49.9% in August. This marked the second consecutive monthly decline and the lowest global reliability level recorded since September 2022.

Delays for vessels arriving late also worsened. The average delay increased by 0.60 days month on month to 6.81 days, the highest level since March 2022. Compared with August 2025, the average delay was 1.92 days longer.

Among the 13 largest carriers, Maersk recorded the highest schedule reliability at 67.3%, followed by Hapag-Lloyd at 61.5%. MSC reached 55.2%, while CMA CGM posted 50.6%. Wan Hai recorded the lowest reliability at 23.2%.

None of the top 13 carriers improved month on month. ONE recorded the smallest decline at 3.5 percentage points, while PIL saw the largest fall at 10.1 percentage points. Reliability was also lower year on year across all 13 carriers, with PIL posting the largest decline at 31.1 percentage points.

At alliance level, Gemini recorded the strongest reliability in July/August 2026 at 77.8%, followed by MSC at 70.1%. Ocean Alliance achieved 48.3%, while Premier Alliance recorded 43.2%.

The figures come from issue 181 of Sea-Intelligence’s 120-page Global Liner Performance report, which tracks schedule reliability across 34 trade lanes and more than 60 carriers.

Source: Sea-Intelligence, Global Schedule Reliability Continues to Plummet in August, 29 September 2026.