Reliability gulf defies logic

Wednesday, 27 February 2008

THERE is always a wide range of schedule reliability results on the North Atlantic, but the variations recorded in this year’s Liner Analysis review are spectacular, and it is hard to fathom how there can be such huge differences between lines operating in the same trade over the same time period.

Overall, the standard on the main-range trade is not far off the level achieved last year, with some definite improvements alongside the poorer performances. However, the two poorest performances do weigh heavily on the average.

These two – the TAS1 of Cosco, “K” Line, Yangming and Hanjin, and the NEC/NEX of Evergreen and Zim, were frankly abysmal. So poor were they that slippage led to the cancellation of a sailing on one week on the former, and on two weeks on the latter, in order to enable ships to get back into the fixed-day pattern.

Port delays were clearly a factor in both cases, with European terminals clogged up with the vast quantities of containers arriving from the Far East. Such delays certainly made a mess of the TAS1 – its scheduled European rotation is around five and a half days, but the actual average was around eight days, and in one case 13.

The worst instance was Cosco Bremerhaven, which spent 12 days loading in late May/early June, arriving 19 days behind the forward schedule at both New York and Norfolk, and being overtaken by the following vessel in the process. The lines have now dropped Felixstowe, which will at least provide a little breathing space in the schedule.

The Evergreen/Zim NEC/NEX allows just six days to cover a rotation that includes Hamburg and Liverpool as well as Antwerp and Rotterdam, and this is arguably insufficient given current port conditions. Even moving all the ships back in the schedule by a week in March was unable to cure the problem for long, and another attempt had to be made in July, the slippage in between causing the poor recorded days-late average.

Compared with these two results, the relatively poor ones above them in the ranking look quite good. These include the CMA CGM/CSCL Liberty Bridge/EAX, which only gradually pulled itself back from winter delays, and the Grand Alliance ATX – the latter also skipped a couple of voyages, but this was due to a temporary capacity trimming over the summer.

The Grand Alliance PAX pendulum also failed to improve, but did limit the damage to its average by slipping an extra ship into the schedule in the spring to give all the other vessels a week extra to get back into their fixed-day slots. The partners also skipped Southampton on six voyages and Rotterdam on three.

MSC looked better than last year, but it does tend to fiddle with its European rotation, leading to variable transit times – and Felixstowe was by-passed on a few occasions. The result at New York was far better than the one at Norfolk, although the published ETA at the latter is now a day later, which should help lift its average.

Several carriers turned in quite reasonable performances without excelling. Included here are ACL, Evergreen on the NUE pendulum, and Europe West-Indies Lines (EWL), which has proved to be a decent competitor to Halifax since introducing its fixed-day schedule.

Once again the top four positions are occupied by the same four operations, and once again the gap between this quartet and the majority is dramatic. There is really very little to choose between these four lines, whose average days late ranged from the 0.12 of Hamburg Süd’s Trident service up to 0.00 for the New World Alliance.

In joint second spot with a 0.05 overall average were Independent Container Line (ICL) and the Maersk Line TA3 pendulum. Both merit a ‘highly commended’ rating, as there was really nothing negative about their performance.

Yet the New World Alliance member lines APL, MOL and Hyundai Merchant Marine (HMM) take this year’s schedule reliability award with a 100% record of arrivals on or before the scheduled date at both New York and Norfolk.

Since the launch of the CGM/CSCL Liberty Bridge/EAX and Evergreen/Zim NEC/NEX, there has been some more serious competition in the bid for the fastest transit times from the UK to New York and the Virginia ports. The two operations have joined the Grand Alliance ATX, New World Alliance APX and Evergreen NUE in scheduling seven-to-eight days to the former, and nine-to-10days to the latter.

Yet when actual times are taken into account, as well as skipped calls, it is a two-horse race between the Evergreen/Zim NEC/NEX and the New World Alliance APX – with the latter just having an edge, and thus gaining a highly impressive double.

From the UK to Canada, ACL remains in a class of its own for times to Halifax. However, the St Lawrence sector is once again less straightforward due to the absence of actual arrival dates at Montreal in the Informa database  – which also means that a Star Performer rating cannot be given.

In fact, there is quite a gulf between the scheduled transit times of the MSC-operated Montreal Express and the two Hapag-Lloyd/OOCL loops that provide a direct service from the UK, and the former is the fastest to Montreal. This is confirmed by carriers’ own data, although Liverpool was skipped on a couple of occasions on the Montreal Express.

Carrier data also gives a good picture of the schedule reliability of the five operations in this trade – the three SLCS (Hapag-Lloyd/OOCL) and two Maersk/MSC loops – although again no award can be given here in line with Liner Analysis ground rules on using data from other sources.

The general pattern is familiar, with severe winter delays gradually working their way out of the schedules over a few voyages, with much better schedule-keeping by the summer months, although the results were rather more patchy than usual.

The three SLCS loops showed mixed results, with Loops 1 and 2 generally following the above pattern. However, the Southampton call was omitted on several occasions on Loop 1 during the survey window, as were three Antwerp calls on Loop 2.

Loop 3 made a much more solid recovery from the winter disruption, but helped largely by the introduction of the new vessels Valdivia and Valentina in April and June respectively.

The MSC Montreal Express was decidedly erratic, and slippage was such that two sailings were omitted over the 20-week survey window in order to get the three ships back onto schedule for a while.

In contrast, the Maersk Line TA4 was consistent throughout the monitoring period, and stands out from its rivals, looking as if it would have been a clear winner of the St Lawrence schedule reliability category.