Schedules in disarray

Friday, 06 March 2009

DELAYS at a number of regional ports have caused significant operational disruption in the trade between northern Europe and Arabia/West Asia, creating major headaches for carriers during the period reviewed for this Liner Analysis survey.

  The delays at the key ports of Jeddah and Jebel Ali have been widely reported, and our data suggests that the problems were particularly bad in the summer. Berthing delays not only affected schedule reliability at these ports, but also had a knock-on effect on subsequent calls.

Among the worst-hit lines were UASC, whose AEC1 schedule was thrown into disarray, and the Grand Alliance EU2. In the second case, the difference between actual and scheduled times from Southampton to Jebel Ali is a clear reflection of the problem.

In several cases, lines omitted the offending ports. In this regard, both the services that have succeeded the EPIC grouping’s network followed the familiar policy of calling at Khor Fakkan rather than Jebel Ali on certain summer sailings – CMA CGM on seven occasions and Hapag-Lloyd/Hamburg Süd on four.
Jeddah was also skipped on a number of occasions, as detailed in the accompanying schedule reliability and transit timetables. The various omissions, combined with the many operational changes and the skipping of sailings on several weeks on a number of operations, has not made the task of assessing performance in the Arabian Peninsula sector particularly easy.

The best individual result for time-keeping was recorded for Maersk’s AE2 at Salalah, and although the line’s overall result was affected by higher averages at Arabian base ports on the AE10, AE9 and ME1, it still did enough to rank as best performer in this sector.

The New World Alliance CEX result also looked good on paper, but Salalah was skipped on one voyage due to a late departure from Europe, and containers would have been loaded on the next sailing.
CSAV Norasia also looked good, as the most punctual line at Jebel Ali. However, the Liner Analysis could not get a clear picture of the IMEX schedule in the first weeks of the survey window due to the extension of round-voyage times from six to seven weeks, and it also had no sailings on several weeks.
Delays at Arabian ports affected the results of several operations at Nhava Sheva, the Liner Analysis base port for Western India. Fortunately, delays at the port’s terminals were not as severe as in last year’s survey, and data has been included in the tables.

Although CSAV Norasia and MSC look impressive here, their results do not include sailings on all weeks, and it is the Hapag-Lloyd/Hamburg Süd operation that must be selected as Star Performer in this sector due to its consistency.

To Colombo, Maersk had the best average, but skipped the port on one sailing, and the most consistent performer was Evergreen.  Although independent dates were not available for three Evergreen calls, close scrutiny of dates at other ports suggests that there is no reason to adjust its average upwards, and there was consequently little to choose between the two carriers.

Most operations in this trade still include a UK call, which is good news for shippers seeking speedy transit times, and the fastest recorded in our survey were decidedly impressive.

To Colombo, Evergreen’s CES was a clear winner, even though it skipped its UK call at Thamesport on a couple of occasions. The UAE, which has replaced the CES, has identical times, and is now only really challenged for speed by Hanjin’s AEX, for which UK cargo has to be relayed via the continent.

To Nhava Sheva, the result is not so obvious due to the tough competition, but at the top, the joint operation of Hapag-Lloyd/Hamburg Süd came in just ahead of Maersk’s ME1. It might also be noted that the first-mentioned also call at Mundra before Nhava Sheva, with a transit time two days shorter.

The fastest line to the Arabian Peninsula is much harder to select. Last year’s winner, the Grand Alliance, was still quickest to Jeddah, but delays meant that the members lines only came in third at Jebel Ali – falling behind the Hapag-Lloyd/Hamburg Süd joint service and the even faster MSC Silk Express.
To complicate matters, Maersk provided a very rapid link to Salalah, although it did fall behind in the race to Jeddah and Jebel Ali.

In the event, it seems only fair to split the Star Performer title into three for this sector – the Grand Alliance to Jeddah, Maersk to Salalah and MSC to Jebel Ali.