GLOBAL ocean carrier schedule reliability started the new year down 2.1 percentage points at 51.5 per cent in January compared to the previous month.

"Throughout 2024, schedule reliability stayed largely within 50-55 per cent. The new year has started in a similar manner, with schedule reliability continuing to remain within that range. Incidentally, the January 2025 score of 51.5 per cent is the same as in January 2024," said Sea-Intelligence CEO Alan Murphy.

According to Sea-Intelligence's Global Liner Performance (GLP) report, the average delay for LATE vessel arrivals decreased by 0.01 days month on month to 5.32 days, which is the lowest that the delay figure has been since July 2024 and is lower than across all pandemic impacted years. On a year-on-year level, the January 2025 figure was 0.85 days lower.

Maersk was the most reliable top 13 carrier in January 2025 with schedule reliability of 55.0 per cent, followed by another 6 carriers with schedule reliability over 50 per cent.

The remaining 6 top 13 carriers were within 46-50 per cent, with Yang Ming and OOCL at the bottom with 46.6 per cent.

"In January 2025, the difference between the most and least reliable carrier dropped to under 8.5 percentage points - the smallest difference since March 2017.

"Only 4 of the top13 carriers recorded a month-on-month improvement, with Wan Hai recording the largest increase of 3.7 percentage points. On a year-on-year level, 7 carriers recorded an improvement, with Maersk recording the largest improvement of 10.9 percentage points," said Mr Murphy.