Compared to April 2019, schedule reliability was down 6.7 percentage points.

"As the blank sailings impact of coronavirus only went truly pandemic in April, we were expecting a significant decline in schedule reliability from March to April, however, this has not (yet) happened. Although a significant number of sailings were blanked in April, it seems quite possible that carriers have managed to adjust their schedules to handle the blank sailings, by implementing sufficient buffers in their schedules," said Alan Murphy, CEO, Sea-Intelligence.

"If this is the case, we may see reliability remain around 70 per cent for the duration of the pandemic, and maybe even improve. However, if we see a sharp recovery, the increase in volumes could negatively impact reliability."

Hamburg Sud was the most reliable top-15 carrier in April 2020 with schedule reliability of 80.3 per cent followed by Wan Hai with 76.2 per cent.

All three THE Alliance carriers were in the bottom three, with Yang Ming recording the lowest April 2020 schedule reliability of 65.1 per cent.

Nine of the top-15 deep-sea carriers recorded a month-on-month improvement in schedule reliability in April 2020, with Evergreen recording the largest improvement of 5.7 percentage points, while HMM recorded the largest month-on-month decrease of 3.2 percentage points.

None of the top-15 carriers recorded improvement in schedule reliability compared to the same month last year, with Wan Hai recording a double-digit year-on-year decline of 10.3 percentage points.

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