From the perspective of schedule reliability, when evaluating supply chains, analysing monthly variability is as important as the monthly performance alone. For instance, a trade lane achieving 95% reliability in a month becomes effectively useless for planning, if the reliability drops to 10% in the next month. Conversely, a trade lane consistently maintaining an 80% reliability level offers far superior predictability for planning.

Figure 1 shows the most volatile trade lanes of the past 24 months. On the Asia‑East Coast South America trade lane, schedule volatility has reached extreme levels, with standard deviation as a share of average reliability exceeding 33% – considerably larger than any other deep‑sea trade lane. This instability similarly plagues North American trade lanes, with South America‑North America and Asia‑North America East Coast both recording variability levels surpassing 25% over the past 24 months. This demonstrates that headline reliability figures mask severe operational cycles. Crucially, out of the ten most unstable trade lanes registered over the past 24 months, nine are complete newcomers to the bottom tier, when compared to the 2018‑2019 pre‑pandemic period. Only the Transatlantic Westbound trade lane maintained its position as a persistently volatile corridor.

Furthermore, regional North‑South and feeder‑connected trade lanes, including Europe‑Africa, Africa‑Europe, and Middle East‑Europe, have all plunged into this highly volatile bottom tier. While the stability of the ten best‑performing trades has improved marginally from a 6.4% variability pre‑pandemic to 6.1% today, the most unstable trade lanes are suffering from unprecedented operational dislocations.

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 All quotes can be attributed to: Alan Murphy, CEO, Sea-Intelligence.
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