Liner reliability set to decline in first quarter 2014

© Khunaspix Dreamstime.

The next victim of the ongoing recession in liner shipping is schedule reliability, warns Drewry. Despite carrier claims that the era of slow-steaming means that more buffers have been built into liner schedules, the reality is that no carrier is going to increase vessel speeds while fuel costs remain prohibitive – and the reliability index doesn’t even take into account the series of skipped voyages, which have so frustrated shippers. After all, a voyage that never took place can’t be measured for its reliability in the first place.