Commercially idle ships account for just 0.6 percent of global capacity as carriers reorganise services across the Middle East and Africa
Global container shipping reliability slipped in June while spare vessel capacity remained exceptionally tight, leaving carriers with limited room to absorb further geopolitical or operational disruption.
Schedule reliability fell 1.9 percentage points month on month to 62.6 percent, leaving it 4.7 percentage points below its level a year earlier, according to Sea-Intelligence. Average delays among late-arriving vessels nevertheless shortened by 0.34 days to 5.31 days, although they remained 0.78 days longer than in June 2025.
More vessels therefore missed scheduled arrivals, even though the average delay among those arriving late shortened.
Spare vessel capacity remains scarce
Only 89 containerships were commercially idle as of July 27, an increase of 13 vessels over two weeks, according to Alphaliner data cited in the report.
Idle capacity nevertheless represented just 0.6 per cent of the 34.1mn TEU global cellular fleet, leaving the liner market effectively fully employed. Large mainline tonnage was particularly scarce, with only two idle vessels in the 12,500-17,999 TEU segment.
Capacity undergoing drydock maintenance, repairs, conversions or retrofits also increased by 73,300 TEU over the fortnight to account for 1.6 percent of the fleet.
A further 141,740 TEU remained affected by the Middle East situation and unavailable for commercial service, although this was almost 20,000 TEU lower than two weeks earlier.
Low idling does not necessarily translate into higher freight rates, but it leaves carriers with less spare tonnage to absorb sudden disruptions. That can tighten effective capacity even when the nominal global fleet remains large.
Trade lanes diverge
Reliability varied sharply across major corridors.
Transatlantic westbound reliability rose 4.9 percentage points month on month to 77.4 per cent, while Europe-Oceania improved to 68.3 per cent, 13.1 percentage points higher than a year earlier.
Europe-Asia moved in the opposite direction, falling 11.5 percentage points year on year to 63 per cent. Asia-North Europe edged up to 68.6 per cent, marginally above the 68.2 per cent recorded a year earlier.
The divergence shows how the global reliability figure can mask significantly different operating conditions across individual trade lanes.
Carriers redraw networks
Major shipping groups are meanwhile continuing to redeploy capacity rather than leaving vessels idle, adjusting services across the Middle East and Africa.
CMA CGM, COSCO Shipping and OOCL have added Oman’s Port of Duqm to their jointly operated North Europe-Middle East-Indian subcontinent service. The loop operates with 13 vessels ranging from 8,500 to 14,100 TEU, marking a significant increase from the feeder-scale ships Duqm has traditionally handled.
Following a test call in May, regular calls began with the 8,488-TEU CMA CGM Tosca. The revised service connects Duqm directly with major northern European gateways and ports on the Indian subcontinent.
CMA CGM is separately expanding its North Europe-West Africa network with Kora Express, a weekly service connecting northern Europe with Ghana, Nigeria, Benin and Senegal through Tanger Med and Algeciras.
The service is due to begin with the Navios Verano departing Southampton on August 26, according to the report. CMA CGM has separately confirmed the introduction of Kora Express as a direct North Europe-West Africa service.
The new loop will complement CMA CGM’s EURAF 1 service while allowing EURAF 5 to concentrate on Cameroon, Congo, Gabon and Angola, splitting the carrier’s West African coverage more clearly between northern and southern markets.
MSC is also reorganising its Red Sea network. The carrier is withdrawing its dedicated Europe Red Sea-Middle East Express only weeks after its introduction and instead incorporating North Europe-Red Sea calls into the eastbound rotation of its Far East-North Europe Albatros service.
The revised structure includes calls at King Abdullah Port and Jeddah before vessels return towards Asia. MSC’s original Europe-Red Sea-Middle East service had been launched in May against a backdrop of continuing operational disruption in the region.
The rapid reversal underscores how fluid carrier network planning around the Red Sea remains.
The figures suggest that the industry’s constraint is not simply the nominal size of the global containership fleet, but the availability of vessels in the right trade lanes when disruption occurs.
With commercially idle capacity at just 0.6 per cent, carriers have little unused tonnage available to respond quickly to additional shocks. Further Middle East disruption, congestion or prolonged diversions could therefore tighten effective capacity even if headline fleet supply remains ample, increasing the risk of schedule disruption and renewed freight-rate volatility.
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