Global Container Schedule Reliability Falls to a 2026 Low as July Delays Hit Their Worst Since Early 2024

Global container-shipping schedule reliability fell 6.1 percentage points month over month to 56.4% in July 2026, its lowest level of the year and the lowest reading since February 2025, according to issue 180 of Sea-Intelligence's Global Liner Performance report, published Aug. 26. Year over year, reliability was down 8.8 percentage points. The average delay for vessels that arrived late worsened to 6.06 days, up 0.59 days from June and the highest since January 2024; year over year, delays were 1.34 days longer. The GLP report tracks schedule reliability across 34 trade lanes and more than 60 carriers.

The month's decline was notable for its breadth rather than a single weak point. Among the 13 carriers Sea-Intelligence ranks individually, not one improved month over month — every carrier's on-time performance worsened, and MSC posted the largest single-carrier decline at 11.9 percentage points. Maersk remained the most reliable major carrier at 73.7%, the only one of the 13 above 70%, followed by Hapag-Lloyd at 69.3%. Five carriers fell into the 50%-60% range, and Wan Hai posted the weakest performance at 29.8% — also the largest year-over-year decline among all carriers, down 24.4 percentage points from July 2025.

Sea-Intelligence's press release does not attribute the July decline to a specific cause, and its underlying trade-lane and port-level breakdowns sit behind the firm's subscription GLP report rather than in the public release — so the figures above represent the confirmed top-line data rather than the full report.

What it means for forwarders booking ocean space

Three things worth building into ocean bookings while reliability sits at a 2026 low:

Every carrier missing on-time performance in the same month is a network-wide capacity signal, not a carrier-selection problem. When 13 of 13 tracked carriers decline together, switching carriers within an alliance or trade lane is unlikely to buy back reliability — the constraint is systemic (port congestion, weather, schedule bunching) rather than carrier-specific execution. Forwarders chasing on-time performance this quarter should look at trade-lane and routing choices, not carrier switching, as the more reliable lever.

A 6-day average delay changes what "on time" means for transload and cross-dock planning. An average delay of 6.06 days for late arrivals — up from 5.47 days in June — is enough to blow through a standard buffer built around a 2-3 day contingency. Forwarders quoting delivery windows to shippers on time-sensitive cargo should widen contingency buffers accordingly for the balance of Q3, particularly on lanes served by the lower-reliability carriers named above.

Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd's reliability premium is now a bookable differentiator, not just a marketing claim. With a 44-point gap between the top carrier (Maersk, 73.7%) and the bottom (Wan Hai, 29.8%), the reliability spread between carriers has widened enough that it should factor into contract negotiations this fall — a shipper or forwarder with flexibility to allocate volume across carriers has a real, measurable reliability premium to negotiate around, not a marginal one.