CONTAINER shipping line reliability declined to another record low in January, but the slip in performance was not entirely unexpected.

The SeaIntel Global Liner Performance report covering January showed schedule reliability declined 3.5 percentage points compared with December to reach 70%.

It is the second consecutive month in which reliability has declined to the lowest level since SeaIntel records began two years ago.

SeaIntel chief operating officer and partner Alan Murphy said: “The continued drop in performance is concerning for both shippers and carriers.

“But the poor performance in January does not come as a big surprise, as the winter slack season often shows poor performance due to both weather incidents and the carriers using the slack season to restructure their services, with disruptions as a result.

“January proved troublesome for many ports on the US east coast which had to be closed due to winter storms, leading to congestion and service delays, with strong impact on carriers’ schedule reliability in January.

“Finally, the strike by port workers in Chile and delays in some Chinese ports has also impacted the result negatively.”

The report showed that Maersk Line has lost its top spot and that for the first time since June 2013, Hamburg Süd was the most reliable carrier seen from a global perspective, with a performance of 80.4%.

Maersk Line’s 2.6 percentage point decline in schedule reliability to 79.7% ranks the Danish carrier the second most reliable carrier, followed by Evergreen with an on-time performance of 75.7%.

In terms of trade lanes, the South America to Mediterranean trade lane improved its performance by seven percentage points from December 2013 to January 2014.

All the main east-west trade lanes, transpacific eastbound, Asia to North Europe and Asia to the Mediterranean, saw their performance decline significantly, by 12%, 13% and 12%, respectively.