LONDON: Container shipping lines schedule reliability showed some signs of improvement in March despite the six-day closure of the Suez Canal caused by the grounded of the Ever Given.

Analysts Sea Intelligence reported that the worst appeared to have passed for liner schedule reliability with a 5.8% improvement month-on-month to reach 40.4% across 34 trade lanes and over 60 carriers covered in the survey.

“That said, there is a long way to go to reach the levels of the previous years, as this was still the lowest schedule reliability for April in the 10 years that we have measured schedule reliability, with the gap to 2020 a sharp -29.9 percentage points,” said Alan Murphy, CEO of SeaIntel.

Late arrivals remained the highest ever for the month of March at 6.16 days, although this was 0.79 days lower month-on-month.

The figures reflect some improvement in the US East and West Coast port congestion situation, although significant delays remain at West Coast ports impacting across lines schedules on the transpacific.

The blockage of the Suez Canal at the end of March caused considerable delays on the Asia – Europe trade and these will feed through into schedules for April and May.

The most reliable container line in March among the top 14 lines was Maersk with a reliability of 48.7% according to SeaIntel. Evergreen was the least reliable at 29.6%.