Friday, November 13, 2026
The news that moves freight
Tracker Checked 13 Nov, 02:39 UTC

Container schedule reliability

Key numbers

Global schedule reliability
50.6 %

▲ 0.7 · Sep 30, 2026

Average delay for late vessel arrivals
6.65 days

▼ 0.16 · Sep 30, 2026

Most reliable top-13 carrier, schedule reliability
64.8 %

▼ 2.5 · Sep 30, 2026

Least reliable carrier, schedule reliability
26.7 %

▲ 3.5 · Sep 30, 2026

Over time

Global schedule reliability (%)
64.749.9Oct 31, 25Sep 30, 2661.4 % · Oct 31, 25 · added from published history64.1 % · Nov 30, 25 · added from published history62.8 % · Dec 31, 25 · added from published history62.4 % · Jan 31, 26 · added from published history59 % · Feb 28, 26 · added from published history62.2 % · Mar 31, 26 · added from published history62.4 % · Apr 30, 26 · added from published history64.7 % · May 31, 26 · added from published history62.6 % · Jun 30, 26 · added from published history56.4 % · Jul 31, 26 · added from published history49.9 % · Aug 31, 26 · added from published history50.6 % · Sep 30, 26
Average delay for late vessel arrivals (days)
6.814.88Oct 31, 25Sep 30, 264.98 days · Oct 31, 25 · added from published history4.88 days · Nov 30, 25 · added from published history5.04 days · Dec 31, 25 · added from published history5.17 days · Jan 31, 26 · added from published history5.49 days · Feb 28, 26 · added from published history5.48 days · Mar 31, 26 · added from published history5.34 days · Apr 30, 26 · added from published history5.52 days · May 31, 26 · added from published history5.31 days · Jun 30, 26 · added from published history6.06 days · Jul 31, 26 · added from published history6.81 days · Aug 31, 26 · added from published history6.65 days · Sep 30, 26
Most reliable top-13 carrier, schedule reliability (%)
78.264.8Oct 31, 25Sep 30, 2674.1 % · Oct 31, 25 · added from published history78.1 % · Nov 30, 25 · added from published history76.7 % · Dec 31, 25 · added from published history72.2 % · Jan 31, 26 · added from published history67.4 % · Feb 28, 26 · added from published history72.3 % · Mar 31, 26 · added from published history76.1 % · Apr 30, 26 · added from published history78.2 % · May 31, 26 · added from published history77.1 % · Jun 30, 26 · added from published history73.7 % · Jul 31, 26 · added from published history67.3 % · Aug 31, 26 · added from published history64.8 % · Sep 30, 26
Least reliable carrier, schedule reliability (%)
52.823.2Oct 31, 25Sep 30, 2644.9 % · Oct 31, 25 · added from published history52.8 % · Nov 30, 25 · added from published history47.8 % · Dec 31, 25 · added from published history50.1 % · Jan 31, 26 · added from published history47.9 % · Feb 28, 26 · added from published history46.6 % · Mar 31, 26 · added from published history39.6 % · Apr 30, 26 · added from published history38 % · May 31, 26 · added from published history35.6 % · Jun 30, 26 · added from published history29.8 % · Jul 31, 26 · added from published history23.2 % · Aug 31, 26 · added from published history26.7 % · Sep 30, 26

Lighter points are earlier figures added from published records. Breaks in a line are gaps in the data. Download the data (CSV)

The facts

  • Global schedule reliability was 50.6% in September 2026, up 0.9 percentage points from August as revised in the September release. August was first published at 49.9%, the figure shown in the table. Schedule reliability is the share of vessel arrivals that came in on time against the published schedule. Source: sea-intelligence.com (as of 2026-09-30)
  • The average delay for late vessel arrivals was 6.65 days in September 2026, down 0.30 days from August as revised in the September release. August was first published at 6.81 days, the figure shown in the table. Source: sea-intelligence.com (as of 2026-09-30)
  • Maersk was the most reliable of the 13 largest carriers in September 2026 at 64.8%. Wan Hai was the least reliable at 26.7%. Source: sea-intelligence.com (as of 2026-09-30)
  • Sea-Intelligence's September release says reliability peaked at 64.5% in May 2026 and then fell for three months in a row, a drop of 14.8 percentage points in total. Source: sea-intelligence.com (as of 2026-09-30)
  • August 2026 was the low point of the year so far: global reliability fell to 49.9% and late ships were 6.81 days late on average. Source: sea-intelligence.com (as of 2026-08-31)
  • On 6 November 2026 Sea-Intelligence corrected its alliance scores after finding some vessel arrivals had been counted twice. Carrier and trade scores were not affected. For August/September 2026, Gemini is now the most reliable alliance at 70.4%, followed by MSC at 69.5% and Ocean Alliance at 44.9%. Source: sea-intelligence.com (as of 2026-11-06)
  • Sea-Intelligence revises earlier months as more data comes in. For example, May 2026 was first published at 64.7% and is given as 64.5% in the September release. The values below are as first published for each month. Sources: sea-intelligence.com and sea-intelligence.com (as of 2026-05-31)

What changed

    • First document. Metrics added: Global schedule reliability (headline), Average delay for late vessel arrivals, Most reliable top-13 carrier, schedule reliability, and Least reliable carrier, schedule reliability, each with monthly backfill from October 2025.

Why we track this

This tracker was added from the tracker list. Schedule reliability tells a forwarder how far to trust a carrier's published arrival dates. When only about half of ships arrive on time and late ships run more than six days behind, as in August and September 2026, delivery dates, warehouse bookings, trucking appointments and transhipment connections all move with them. Sea-Intelligence publishes the global figure, the average delay and carrier scores every month, so the numbers can be kept current.

Sources