Photo: VesselFinder
Across the east-west container trades in August and September, MSC achieved reliability of 68.9%, narrowly ahead of the Gemini Cooperation at 68.4%, according to Sea-Intelligence.
The result marks a reversal for Gemini partners Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd as their reliability fell 9.4 percentage points, month on month, to 68.4%. Although Maersk proved the most reliable individual carrier on the trades.
MSC also declined, but by a more modest 1.2 percentage points, allowing it to take the lead.
The performance remained well short of Gemini’s stated ambition of around 90% reliability, although performance varied significantly by trade.
According to recent Sea-Intelligence data, Gemini maintained strong reliability on several routes, including Asia-North Europe, where it did achieve 92.9%, compared with MSC’s 78.2%. And on Asia-Mediterranean, Gemini achieved 83.2%, against MSC’s 77.1%.
Industry consultant Lara Jensen noted that for Gemini, the overall “low performance” was particularly driven by the backhaul trades from North America and Europe to Asia. And he added: “And is hence likely a consequence of the typhoon-induced issues in Far East ports.”
The transatlantic, however, remained a particular strength for Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd, achieving reliability of 98.7% on North America East Coast-Mediterranean, and 97% on North America East Coast-North Europe. On the westbound transatlantic, reliability reached 100% on Mediterranean-North America East Coast and 91.1% on North Europe-North America East Coast.
But Gemini’s performance was dragged down by an overall decline across the east-west network, with MSC proving more resilient.
Industry-wide, schedule reliability on the east-west trades fell 3.5 percentage points month on month, to 53.6% in August and September. The Ocean Alliance achieved reliability of 44.8%, down 3.4 percentage points, while the Premier Alliance declined 1.5 points, to 41.5%.
The latest figures continue persistently weak container shipping schedule reliability. Across the 13 largest carriers, reliability edged up by just 0.9 percentage points in September, to 50.6%, following three consecutive monthly declines that wiped 14.8 percentage points off the May peak of 64.5%.
Average delay for late vessel arrivals improved by 0.3 days, to 6.65 days, but remained the second-highest September figure on record, according to Sea-Intelligence.
Maersk was the most reliable individual carrier last month, at 64.8%, followed by Hapag-Lloyd, at 60.4%. MSC recorded 57.7%, while CMA CGM reached 51.8%.
None of the 13 carriers improved their reliability compared with September 2025. Zim saw the smallest decline, at 8.7 percentage points, while Pacific International Lines (PIL) suffered the largest, 27.3 points.
Sea-Intelligence also found that on-time performance diverged sharply across individual tradelanes. Reliability on Asia-North America west coast fell 7.1 percentage points month on month, to 53.5%, while Asia-North America east coast dropped 8.6 points, to 53%.
East coast South America-Asia saw the largest monthly decline across the 34 lanes monitored, falling 11 percentage points, to just 28.2%. By contrast, Europe-Oceania reliability improved 7.5 points, to 74.2%.
The figures underline the gap between alliance-level ambitions and the operational performance shippers are experiencing. Although Gemini continues to deliver high reliability on selected European and transatlantic routes, MSC’s stronger overall result highlights the challenge of maintaining consistent schedules across a global network.