Shanghai Schedule Reliability Falls to 21% as Asia Port Delays Worsen

Global container schedule reliability fell to 56.4% in July 2026, a drop of 6.1 percentage points from June and the steepest single-month decline Sea-Intelligence has recorded since January 2021. The average delay for vessels that arrived late rose to 6.06 days.

Underneath that headline sits a set of port-level figures that matter more for anyone planning an Asia origin lane. All 14 of the region’s busiest container ports recorded weaker on-time arrivals in July. At Shanghai, 21.0% of container vessels arrived on schedule.

What a 21% On-Time Rate Does to an ETA

Schedule reliability counts a vessel as on time when it arrives inside a defined window around its published ETA. At Shanghai in July, roughly four out of five vessels landed outside that window. Sea-Intelligence called the result exceptionally unusual and noted that, setting aside pandemic-era disruption, the port has not recorded reliability this low in 14 years of data.

The second figure sizes the exposure. Across the global network, vessels arriving late arrived an average of 6.06 days behind schedule, up 0.59 days on June and 1.34 days on July 2025. That is the highest average delay recorded in 2026 and the highest since January 2024.

Together those two numbers change how much confidence a published ETA on an Asia origin lane should carry. For vessels that were late globally in July, the average miss was just over six days. Everything keyed to the scheduled arrival therefore needs to account for the possibility of a materially different actual date: the drayage booking, the warehouse receiving slot, the assumption about when the free time clock starts, and the Demurrage & Detention exposure that follows from it.

The Asian Port Numbers Reported for July

Port	July 2026 on-time arrivals	Change vs June
Shanghai	21.0%	-19.2 pp
Shekou	27.4%	Not reported
Port Klang	33.3%	Not reported
Ningbo	34.6%	-20.1 pp
Busan	40.9%	Not reported
Singapore	43.2%	-5.7 pp
Yantian	48.3%	-23.5 pp
Hong Kong	51.6%	-20.4 pp

Asian port schedule reliability, July 2026. Sea-Intelligence reported that all 14 of the region’s busiest ports declined; the eight above are the ports named in trade press coverage of Sunday Spotlight issue 780. Figures for the remaining six were not published in that coverage.

Shanghai is the outlier at the bottom of the table. Its 19.2 pp fall to 21.0% left it 6.4 percentage points below Shekou, the next-lowest reading among the ports reported.

Yantian recorded the largest single decline of any major Asian port at 23.5 pp, yet still finished at 48.3%. It had further to fall than most of this group, which is why the steepest drop did not produce the worst level.

Hong Kong lost 20.4 pp and landed at 51.6%, the only port on this list that kept more than half of its arrivals inside the window.

Shanghai, Shekou, Port Klang and Ningbo all finished below 35%. For shippers running origins through the Yangtze River Delta or Pearl River Delta, the Shanghai, Ningbo and Shekou readings show deterioration across several of China’s major export gateways in the same month.

Singapore posted the smallest reported decline in the group at 5.7 pp, and still finished at 43.2%. It was among the region’s busiest ports by vessel arrivals in July, so deterioration there matters beyond an individual gateway because of the port’s role across wider liner and transshipment networks.

If your team rebuilds arrival estimates by hand every time a vessel slips at Shanghai or Ningbo, walk through how ops teams track container-level milestones across carriers instead of the published schedule.

The Carrier Gap Is Wider Than the Port Gap

Sea-Intelligence’s Global Liner Performance report for July, issue 180, covers 34 trade lanes and more than 60 carriers. It puts a second spread underneath the port numbers.

Carrier	July 2026 schedule reliability
Maersk	73.7%
Hapag-Lloyd	69.3%
Five other top-13 carriers	50% to 60% band
Wan Hai	29.8%

Carrier schedule reliability, July 2026, from Sea-Intelligence Global Liner Performance issue 180. Individual figures were published for the highest and lowest performers; the remaining carriers were reported by band.

Maersk was the only one of the 13 largest carriers above 70%. Hapag-Lloyd was the only carrier between 60% and 70%. Wan Hai finished lowest at 29.8% and posted the largest annual decline in the group, down 24.4 pp against July 2025.

None of the 13 improved month on month, and none improved year on year. MSC recorded the steepest monthly decline at 11.9 pp.

The gap between the top and bottom of that list is 43.9 percentage points. The global figures do not tell you how large that difference will be on a specific port pair, but they make carrier performance another variable worth checking at lane level rather than treating every published schedule out of the same origin as equally reliable.

Why July’s Numbers Matter for Q4 Bookings Now

Sea-Intelligence’s own read is that with the region’s busiest ports running more than half their incoming vessels late, the backlog cascades through the network and is likely to produce a further wave of delays on head-haul lanes in the months that follow.

The conditions behind the July figures did not clear when the month ended. July congestion at Shanghai and Ningbo was compounded by Typhoon Bavi and other weather disruption, while late August brought another hit from Typhoon Saudel. Linerlytica put more than 4.3m TEU of containership capacity waiting to berth worldwide on 25 August, above the covid-era peak, before the figure eased to 3.92m TEU in its 1 September update. We covered the backlog in 4.31M TEU Is Waiting to Berth as China Ports Recover From Saudel. Drewry has separately reported that global vessel waiting times have close to doubled against 2019.

Golden Week capacity comes off the same network. Maersk and MSC have announced six transpacific blank sailings across the holiday period, which removes sailings from lanes already carrying a wide arrival spread. A Q4 booking quoted against a schedule from a network running at 56.4% inherits both effects at once.

What To Re-Check This Week

Which of your Asia origin bookings route through Shanghai, Shekou, Port Klang or Ningbo, the four ports on this list below 35%.
Whether the transit-time buffer on those lanes reflects actual lane and carrier performance rather than the published schedule alone. Vessels classified as late globally in July arrived an average of 6.06 days behind schedule.
The carrier on each booking against the July spread, then the performance of that carrier on the specific lane you are using.
Whether free time and D&D assumptions at destination are keyed to the published ETA or to observed arrival.
Which Q4 quotes were issued before the July reliability data became available, and whether they still reflect the current arrival spread.

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