Global News Vessel on-time performance at US ports up slightly in August

Vessel schedule reliability in the eastbound trans-Pacific improved in August, although on-time performance in the largest US trade lane lagged global liner performance.

Schedule reliability from Asia to the West Coast increased 2.9 percentage points from July to 29.5 percent, while vessel on-time performance on the Asia-East Coast trade lane rose 1.5 percentage points to 17.2 percent, according to the Global Liner Performance Report released Wednesday by Sea-Intelligence Maritime Analysis.

Global vessel schedule reliability in August improved 5.8 percentage points from July to 46.2 percent, the largest month-on-month gain of the year, as supply chain bottlenecks on some of the major east-west trade lanes began to ease.

“This is now the fourth consecutive month that schedule reliability has improved month over month,” Sea-Intelligence said. Late vessel arrivals in US almost double the global average The average delay for late-arriving vessels in the eastbound trans-Pacific also lagged global vessel reliability. The average delay for late vessel arrivals to the US West Coast was 10.32 days, the second-highest ever recorded for August on that trade lane. The average delay for late-arriving vessels from Asia to the East Coast was 10.18 days, the highest delay ever recorded for August on that lane. The average delay for late-arriving vessels globally in August was 5.86 days.

US ports on the East, Gulf, and West coasts continue to experience port congestion and port-related supply chain bottlenecks. The container ship backlog in Savannah at the end of July reached 40.

The backlog in Los Angeles-Long Beach on Tuesday was nine, down from the record 109 in January, according to the Marine Exchange of Southern California. However, the largest US port complex continues to experience record rail container dwell times on its marine terminals due to congestion at inland rail ramps in Chicago, Memphis, and Dallas that has forced railroads to limit the capacity they deploy to the West Coast.