According to splash247.com, port congestion is absorbing 2.3 million TEU of container vessel capacity — equivalent to the sixth-largest global carrier — just as newbuild deliveries and Suez Canal rerouting accelerate tonnage re-entry into service.
Capacity Disappears Into Delays
New Sea-Intelligence data shows 6.6% of the global containership fleet is now effectively unavailable due to delays — up sharply from 5% in June and triple the pre-pandemic baseline of 2.2%. This idle capacity represents a volume so large that, if operated as a standalone carrier, it would rank just behind Hapag-Lloyd. The deterioration has accelerated rapidly: global schedule reliability fell 6.1 percentage points in July to 56.4%, the steepest monthly decline since January 2021.
Asia’s Ports Lead the Downturn
All 14 of Asia’s busiest ports recorded worsening schedule reliability in July, with typhoons compounding terminal strain. Shanghai’s reliability collapsed to 21%, Ningbo stood at 34.6%, and Singapore at 43.2%. Linerlytica recently calculated that more than 4.3 million TEU of capacity was waiting to berth worldwide — exceeding even the absolute peak seen during the pandemic. Drewry notes global vessel waiting times have nearly doubled compared with 2019.
Two Overlapping Capacity Shocks
Sea-Intelligence estimates the current congestion-driven capacity squeeze could unwind in four-and-a-half to six months to reach June 2025 lows — or just two to three-and-a-half months to return to end-2025 levels. Simultaneously, Mediterranean Shipping Co (MSC), Maersk, and CMA CGM are progressively returning services to the Suez Canal, with around 19% of Asia-Europe capacity already shifting back from the Cape route. A full Suez normalisation would cause an 8.7% year-on-year contraction in global head-haul TEU-mile demand in the first half of 2027, despite underlying container demand growth of 6.6%. Even a 50% return would push TEU-mile growth negative — a critical development given the containership orderbook stands at 40% of the existing fleet.
Source: splash247.com
Compiled from international media by the SCI.AI editorial team.
