Numbers misinform when they show that container carriers lost less capacity due to bottlenecks in March than earlier in the year, assesses Sea-Intelligence. Loss of capacity is still significant.
Delays and bottlenecks on the container market eased a bit in March compared to January, when the situation was at its worst – but the improvement won’t last for long, according to Sea-Intelligence.
In an update, the analyst firm writes that carriers’ loss of capacity due to supply chain bottlenecks fell to 11.3 percent from 13.8 percent in January and 12.4 percent in February.
However, the figures may need correction in the near future. In a month, already, the March figures could be adjusted to approximately 12 percent, according to Sea-Intelligence.
”But before anyone firmly concludes that March 2022 saw a significant drop in capacity loss, there is an expectation that in the next reliability report issued a month from now, the March numbers will be adjusted to show a worse reliability than what is currently being reported,” reads the update.
The analyst firm uses container line schedule reliability to calculate the amount of carrier capacity lost due to supply chain bottlenecks and delays.
That analysts already now are able to predict that the market situation is worse than what the most recent data suggest, is due to the fact that ”when the average delays become very long, it means that some vessels will arrive so late as to only be captured in the report in the subsequent month,” writes Sea-Intelligence.
The current capacity decline on the container market is equivalent to shipping company Cosco’s entire fleet becoming inactive, according to Sea-Intelligence.
