Asia–Europe Shipping Delays Hit 9.9 Days as On-Time Arrivals Fall to 4%

Only 4% of arrivals on the Far East to Europe trade came in on time in September, according to Xeneta’s latest Schedule Reliability Scorecard. Across all vessels on the trade, the average delay reached 9.9 days. That is the trade’s worst month since September 2021.

For importers in Europe, the exposure sits in plans built around expected arrival dates: warehouse receiving slots, haulage orders, customer deliveries and safety stock sized for a few days of slippage. Xeneta sees little prospect of reliability finding a floor in October, and the buffer days set aside for Q4 are being used up on cargo that hasn’t landed yet.

September’s Delay, Trade by Trade

Trade	On-time arrivals, Sep 2026	Change vs Aug 2026	Average delay
Global	27%	-2 pp	6.0 days
Far East to Europe	4%	-2 pp	9.9 days
Far East to North America	20%	Flat	6.9 days
Europe to North America	49%	+8 pp	1.9 days

Source: Xeneta Schedule Reliability Scorecard, September 2026. On time means arrival within ±24 hours of the originally planned ETA.

Xeneta measures reliability against the carrier’s original published schedule rather than its repeatedly updated ETA. The 9.9-day figure measures average vessel delay against that baseline. It does not necessarily represent the change from the ETA provided when an individual shipment was booked.

For delivery planning, the relevant gap is between each shipment’s current ETA and the date used to arrange its receiving and haulage. Other providers use different measurement baselines, as our comparison of the Xeneta and Sea-Intelligence measures explains, so their figures shouldn’t be compared directly with Xeneta’s.

Every carrier in Xeneta’s ranking posted its highest average delay of the past 12 months in September. With 96% of arrivals on the Far East to Europe trade falling outside the ±24-hour window, the on-time percentage alone says little about the severity of delay facing an individual shipment. What matters for each container is how far its expected arrival has drifted from the date your plan assumed.

Where the Delay Is Building in October

Waits at Ningbo and Yantian eased in September, the same month Far East to Europe fell to 4%. Xeneta tracks the disruption moving downstream to berths in Europe and North America, while Shanghai, Ningbo and Yantian still held 0.74 million TEU at anchor as of October 6.

Xeneta’s figures show Singapore absorbing part of the spillover. The hub’s average daily vessel queue nearly doubled in September, from 12 to 22 vessels, and average wait rose from 1.9 to 3.1 days.

Rotterdam moved from STABLE to CONGESTED in the Tradlinx Port Congestion Index for September 22 to October 5, on a two-week average berthing delay of 22.6 hours with 44 vessels waiting.

Felixstowe and Southampton both sit on the index’s early-warning list of ports still rated LOW or STABLE whose delays are rising fastest, at 13.1 and 14.5 hours respectively. Felixstowe’s three-day reading reached 25.4 hours.

The strain is concentrated at specific gateways. Xeneta’s September average wait for Northern Europe as a region edged down by 0.1 day. The port-level figures also cover different measurement periods and should be treated as congestion indicators rather than additional days to add automatically to a vessel’s existing delay.

October also brings a capacity question. Carriers blanked 6% of planned Far East to Europe capacity in September, while announced October blankings already account for at least 17% of planned capacity. Xeneta advises shippers in Europe to allow more lead time on October bookings and to ask carriers which services they are protecting from cuts.

Where Delay Meets a Blank ETA

Delay on this scale is hardest to manage where carrier tracking is thinnest. A Tradlinx analysis of 508,055 ocean shipments found a carrier ETA missing at an evaluated stage in 8.43% of shipments. Nearly three in four of those gaps concerned the intermediate transshipment port, and transshipment cargo accounted for 87% of all missing-ETA cases.

The sample covers shipments with actual arrival confirmed by March 2026, before the current run of typhoon disruption. It provides an earlier reference point for where visibility gaps occur, rather than a measurement of ETA availability during the current congestion.

The findings identify two risks that can overlap for transshipment cargo. Xeneta reports longer vessel queues at Singapore, while Tradlinx’s earlier shipment analysis found that missing carrier ETAs were concentrated at transshipment stages. The historical sample does not establish whether ETA gaps have increased during the current disruption.

An empty ETA field rarely raises an alert. If a connecting vessel is delayed and the expected arrival is unavailable or outdated, a container can slip past its planned receiving slot without a clear warning on the booking screen. Operations teams may then have to reconcile vessel status, terminal information and warehouse arrangements manually.

If your team is re-timing Asia-Europe deliveries from carrier ETAs that keep moving or go blank at the transshipment hub, walk through how ops teams flag per-container ETA drift before a delivery slot is missed.

What to Re-Check on Asia-Europe Cargo Through November

Delivery slots booked from the original schedule: For each container due in the next six weeks, compare the current ETA with the date its receiving slot or haulage order was set against. Re-time any where the gap now exceeds your buffer.
Blank ETAs at a transshipment hub: Treat a missing ETA on cargo routed through Singapore, Tanjung Pelepas or another hub as an open exception. Check the connecting vessel’s latest status and expected departure from the hub instead of waiting for the field to repopulate.
Arrivals at Rotterdam and UK gateways: Check the latest vessel berth estimate, expected discharge and terminal availability before confirming pickup. Port-wide waiting-time averages indicate congestion risk but should not be added directly to a vessel’s existing delay.
Pickup capacity after a late berth: Confirm haulage against the revised discharge and container-availability dates. Import demurrage free time commonly starts at discharge, though carrier tariffs differ. A late vessel can create charges if trucking or warehouse arrangements cannot be moved to match its arrival. Check the applicable tariff and last free day for each container.
October and November sailings: With announced October blankings already covering at least 17% of planned Far East to Europe capacity, ask the carrier which services it is protecting and allow more lead time on new bookings. Recheck November capacity plans as carriers update their schedules.
Safety stock sized in Q3: Reassess buffers against the severity and variability of delays on your actual services. The Far East to Europe trade averaged 9.9 days of vessel delay in September, but that figure is not a universal buffer to apply to every shipment. Xeneta warns that contingency plans set today may not hold by the time your next booking arrives.