Container shipping appears to be suffering from long covid. 

New data from Danish consultancy Sea-Intelligence shows that the continuing lack of vessel reliability has created a new baseline for vessel capacity absorption, at a level two to three times higher than the pre-pandemic normality.

Capacity absorption due to low reliability during the pandemic at the start of the decade brought sky-high freight rates. However, Sea-Intelligence data shows that in the post-pandemic market, there has not been a reversal to the old normal.

Pre-pandemic normality was a delay typically of three to four days, something that today has settled into a normality of some 4½-5½ days. 

The period 2011-2019 had a normal market performance around 70-80%. The pandemic was obviously a major aberration but following the market

normalisation, liner shipping seems to be settling in at a new normality range of 50-65%.

The pre-pandemic normality in 2011- 2019 was a baseline of 2.2% of global capacity being absorbed due to vessel delays. The share of global capacity absorbed by vessel delays has increased from 2.2% pre-pandemic to between 4% to 6% today, somewhere between a doubling and a tripling. Using the average for 2023-2026, capacity absorption has been 5.3%.

“The consequence is a shift to a new normality, where a pool of vessel capacity equal to the entire fleet of HMM, is permanently unavailable due to vessel delays. From a carrier perspective this is a blessing in disguise, as it helps curb the looming overcapacity problem,” Sea-Intelligence noted in its latest weekly report. South Korean flagship HMM is the world’s eighth-largest carrier with a fleet in excess of 1m slots.