Impressive schedule reliability performance

Wednesday, 07 October 2009

There was a marked improvement in the performance of shipping lines in the North Atlantic trade this year, with some very impressive results for schedule reliability recorded for the period under review.
 
Some operations that had struggled last year certainly came up to scratch this time around. Among these were ACL’s ro-ro/container service, the CKYH joint service and the Grand Alliance/Zim ATX. 

ACL managed to keep very tightly to schedule, with the one exception occurring in April, when one of its five ships was held up in Hamburg for ten days for repairs – subsequently skipping the Liverpool loading call and arriving four days late at the North American base ports. 

The joint service of Cosco, “K” Line, Yangming and Hanjin also impressed, and it will be interesting to see if the lines can keep this up with the TAE, the replacement service that they have just set up with Evergreen. As this actually follows the same itinerary as the old CKYH loop, the chances of this happening look good. 

Evergreen is using the TAE to replace the transatlantic leg of its NUE pendulum, an operation that also seems to have improved dramatically in its final months, although it was not fully monitored and does not appear in the table. 

The Grand Alliance and Zim performed even better than those listed above with their ATX loop, as they produced a clean sheet – i.e. with no late arrivals at either New York or Norfolk. However, the overall Grand Alliance result was spoiled by the poorer performance of the PAX pendulum. 

Even the operations at the lower end of the schedule reliability table turned in better performances than they did last year, although they still tended to be somewhat erratic. 

In this category are the CMA CGM/Marfret PAD/NASP, the Grand Alliance PAX and MSC’s North Atlantic service. 

In recent years, three operations have stood out from the rest, and this trio continued to keep the bar high this year. This select group comprises Maersk and the New World Alliance, through their respective TA3 and APX pendulums, and Independent Container Line (ICL). 

ICL was helped by the decision to switch calls from Richmond, as the deeper draught at Wilmington means that a double call at Chester is no longer necessary. There were no late arrivals at Chester, while there was only one delay in arriving at Wilmington – and as the scheduled ETA at the latter has now been put back from Wednesday to Thursday, this allows even more time. 

Maersk was only a fraction behind ICL, and both deserve to be highly commended. As for the New World Alliance lines (APL, MOL and HMM), they were heading for a perfect record until one APX ship suffered a technical problem on her return voyage in June, and she had to divert for repairs – and according to HMM’s website, her scheduled transatlantic voyage was left void. 

The New World Alliance was thus unfortunate to be pushed out of the reckoning for Star Performer, and this leaves Zim as the only carrier with a 100% record over the full 20 weeks of the survey. However, it should be borne in mind that this is for the ATX, on which it has operational involvement, as in addition it was buying slots on the CKYH operation – and now does so on its successor, the TAE. 

As far as transit times are concerned, there has been little change from last year. This means that the New World Alliance lines’ APX was still the fastest from the UK, with the Grand Alliance/Zim ATX hot on its heels. 

To the Canadian coastal port of Halifax, ACL continued to provide much faster times than the Grand Alliance, its only permanent rival – although note that alliance member Hapag-Lloyd does actually have access to slots on ACL ships from Liverpool. 

In the St.Lawrence sector, it was once again impossible to give an independent assessment of time-keeping, as the data for Montreal was incomplete – although the major changes that have taken place have rendered the data largely irrelevant in any case. 

In most instances, carriers’ own data is available, and while there is no reason to question this, it cannot be used for comparative purposes in the Liner Analysis as it comes from different sources which may have different criteria for timing arrivals. 

Out of the two unchanged operations, Maersk Line’s TA4 looked the most punctual, with an extremely high level of performance. All bar one of the sailings in the review period arrived at Montreal on either the scheduled date or the one before. 

The other, the second loop of Hapag-Lloyd and OOCL’s St.Lawrence Co-ordinated Service (SLCS), looked rather more shaky, with ships on most Loop 2 sailings arriving after the scheduled Monday slots – and some by as much as three days. 

The SLCS Loop 1 looked much better on the 19 sailings covered in the survey, and could be bracketed together with Maersk, although whether this standard has been maintained in the tie-up with MSC is as yet unclear. 

Data for MSC itself was very patchy, and the Liner Analysis was only able to establish a handful of actual arrival dates at Montreal. 

As for transit times, only one of the three remaining St.Lawrence operations calls directly in the UK, this being the joint service of MSC and the SLCS (Montreal Express/Loop 1), and its scheduled transit time of nine days from Liverpool to Montreal can hardly be grumbled at.