Container shipping schedules are falling further behind just as carriers prepare to throw more capacity into an already congested market.

Global container schedule reliability fell for a third consecutive month in August, dropping four percentage points to 29 percent, the second-worst reading of the past year, according to Xeneta’s August 2026 Schedule Reliability Scorecard.

On a monthly basis, the average delay for late vessels jumped nearly a full day, from 4.2 to 5.1 days.

The collapse is centered on one of the world’s busiest arteries. On-time performance on the Far East-Europe trade lane fell 10 percentage points to just 6 percent, with average delays of 8.2 days—levels not seen since worldwide congestion snarled supply chains in late 2021, per the August scorecard.

Weather has been a substantial driver of the recent collapse in reliability. Four back-to-back typhoons in July and August left some 1.1 million 20-foot equivalent units (TEUs) laid up at anchorage across major Chinese ports including Shanghai, Ningbo and Yantian. That backlog will surface as berth-arrival delays in Europe and North America for weeks.

The Port of Shanghai has been working through the vessel bunching through mid-September. Waiting time for ships at the world’s busiest port increased from 65 hours in the week of Aug. 31-Sept. 6, to 78 hours in the week of Sept. 7-13, according to Drewry.

Shanghai’s average vessel waiting time sits at 4.72 days, down from 5.14 days three weeks prior, said Kuehne+Nagel in its Sept. 22 port update. Berth congestion and yard density remain elevated across the port’s Yangshan and Waigaoqiao terminals, with waits sometimes running six-to-eight days.

The ports of Ningbo and Yantian have seen deeper improvements at their terminals in recent weeks. Ningbo’s average waiting time is now 2.51 days, down from 3.55 days three weeks ago. Similarly, Yantian has dropped from 2.61 days to 1.56 days.

Although the port congestion in China is gradually easing from the recent peaks, according to a Monday update from Linerlytica, continued disruptions at southeast Asian, Indian and Middle Eastern ports remain at near record highs.

Linerlytica said 11.1 percent of the total global fleet, or 3.82 million TEUs, remains congested at a global port.

The congestion further sets the stage for more backups on the Asia-Europe trade lane, particularly on the northern side of the continent which hosts the busiest ports including Rotterdam and Antwerp.

In a weekly update Sunday, Sea-Intelligence said scheduled weekly capacity on the Asia–north Europe route across the four-week period starting with China’s Golden Week stands at 1.50 million TEUs—27 percent above last year and 60 percent above the 2017-to-2019 average.

Golden Week, which lasts from Oct. 1-7, and the following week show projected capacity increases of 63 percent over last year and 39 percent above the pre-pandemic period.

“Shippers should treat the mid-to-late October schedules as highly volatile placeholders, and should brace for severe schedule instability, rolled cargo and abrupt delays throughout the latter half of October,” said Alan Murphy, CEO of Sea-Intelligence.

Murphy warned that once the backlog clears, Golden Week factory shutdowns will crater demand just as capacity freed by vessels returning to the faster Suez Canal routing on the back-haul flood the market.

“This will likely force the shipping lines into chaotic, last minute voyage cancellations,” he said.

Carrier choice is becoming a genuine differentiator heading into contract negotiation season. Ten of the top twelve carriers saw reliability declines in August, with six hitting 12-month lows. This included Hapag-Lloyd, CMA CGM, Pacific International Lines, HMM, Wan Hai and Yang Ming, according to Xeneta’s August scorecard.

Even the most reliable tier of ocean carriers buckled, with Maersk fall six percentage points to 51 percent and Hapag-Lloyd seven percentage points to 46 percent. This marks the German line’s worst reading since before the Gemini Cooperation launched in February 2025.

The Panama Canal could further add compounding pressure on schedule reliability in the coming months. The waterway projects daily transits will average just 29.5 in the fiscal year starting Oct. 1, an 18 percent drop from the typical 36, and a further cut from the 32 already in place.

For the trade conduit, it is shaping up as a redux of the mid-2023 to early-2024 drought, when transits bottomed at 22 a day; Panama declared a national emergency over El Niño conditions in August. The ACP postponed a planned Oct. 1 cut of the maximum draft for larger Neopanamax vessels to 47.5 feet, holding at 48 for now, but it is modeling a 44-foot draft for larger vessels in next year’s dry February-through-May window, which would force lighter loads.