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Ocean freight: rates have entered a sustained six‑month deflationary trend since the June peak‍

Container rates have declined since January 2025, with average 40ft prices falling from $3,711 to $2,404.

Last month, the Drewry WCI composite index registered a 10% month‑on‑month correction, declining to $2,212 per 40ft container, representing an 87% retracement from the pandemic peak of $10,377 in September 2021, while remaining 55% above the 2019 pre‑pandemic baseline of $1,420. The average 40ft container price in 2025 stood at approximately $2440, marginally exceeding the January 2026 average, indicating a slight downward normalization in the current rate environment.

Experts anticipate a continued softening of ocean freight rates in 2026, as several potential disruptions have already been internalized as ‘known disruptions’ within the market outlook. For example, carriers have already rerouted around the Suez Canal, and the US–China trade war is classified as a known, market‑priced disruption.

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Airfreight rates remain essentially flat, indicating a stabilization phase in which market dynamics show limited upward or downward pressure

Airfreight rates exhibited only marginal volatility in 2025, closing the year slightly elevated due to seasonal uplift. Airfreight volume is projected to expand by 2.6% year‑over‑year, reflecting a steady demand recovery.

Schedule Reliability in Ocean Freight 2026: Reality vs. Carrier Promises

At the beginning of 2025, the ocean freight market underwent a significant structural realignment driven by the rollout of new carrier alliances and the dissolution of the MSC/Maersk partnership. Each alliance outlined its own strategic mandate, ranging from end‑to‑end integrated logistics solutions to enhanced schedule‑reliability performance with targeted reliability levels exceeding 90%. The core question now is whether carriers possess the operational and network resilience to independently deliver sustained reliability and service‑level improvements.

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Looking Back: How did schedule‑reliability metrics develop in 2025, and which carriers emerged as top performers?

In retrospect, schedule reliability in 2025 showed a structural improvement compared with the disruption‑intensive years preceding it; however, performance remained well below the >90% reliability thresholds publicly targeted by some carriers. Sea‑Intelligence data indicates that global schedule reliability closed December 2025 at 62.8%, with delayed vessels still arriving roughly five days behind proforma schedules. This marks a lift compared to 2024 schedule‑integrity metrics (circa 50–55%) and a significant recovery from pandemic‑period volatility, yet carrier punctuality still falls short of historical pre‑crisis baselines.

Xeneta provides a more stringent assessment, estimating that only around 34% of shipments achieved true on‑time arrival in 2025, up from roughly 30% in 2024. This underscores that, from a shipper‑centric viewpoint, operational reliability remains materially constrained. The variance between the Sea‑Intelligence and Xeneta figures is attributable to methodological divergence, particularly differing definitions of ‘on‑time’ and data‑sampling frameworks. Despite these discrepancies, both datasets converge on the same direction of travel: 2025 delivered measurable improvement, but not a full reversion to pre‑disruption norms.

Sea‑Intelligence data indicates that, on a network level, the Gemini Cooperation delivered the highest operational performance in late 2025, exceeding 90% schedule reliability. This outcome underscores the impact of a tightly governed, simplified network architecture on reducing operational variability. At the carrier level, Maersk and Hapag‑Lloyd recorded the strongest schedule‑reliability figures in December 2025. The 2025 results overall confirm that reliability can be materially enhanced on optimized, closed‑loop networks; however, system‑wide performance across the global liner network remains well below the reliability thresholds carriers continue to signal to the market.

While the absolute figures vary due to differing measurement methodologies, both data sources converge on the same conclusion: schedule reliability improved in 2025 but remains well below carriers’ stated targets.

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What actually causes delays?

A recent academic paper from the University of Rijeka, published on 27 October, confirms that port congestion remains the primary driver of delays in container liner services. Although disruptions in global shipping are increasing in frequency and complexity, the tools available to carriers to mitigate delays and restore schedule integrity have not evolved significantly and remain limited. In addition to port congestion, the study highlights factors such as nautical service availability and inland transportation constraints as key contributors to reduced schedule reliability.

The report shows that schedule reliability is not solely the responsibility of ocean freight carriers; improvements must be made end‑to‑end, with port authorities, terminals, and nautical service providers working together.

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What seems to make the difference?

Carriers can improve their reliability and on‑time performance by reducing network complexity, minimizing transshipment dependencies, and maintaining more stable port‑rotation schedules. Reducing complexity involves fewer port calls, fewer transshipment nodes, and cleaner, more controllable service rotations. Each additional port call or transshipment hub increases operational variability and amplifies delay‑propagation risks. In addition to structural simplification, carriers benefit from incorporating operational levers such as buffer time, schedule slack, protected berth windows, and predefined recovery playbooks to support effective schedule restoration when disruptions occur.

In practice, improving schedule reliability requires a more proactive, risk‑driven network‑operations approach. Many of the key disruption drivers such as adverse weather, port congestion, inland transport constraints, and variability in nautical services, can be anticipated to some extent, yet they still propagate through sailing schedules.

Carriers that consistently perform better typically maintain higher levels of end‑to‑end visibility, including early detection of schedule adjustments, more flexible cargo‑stowage strategies, and closer coordination with terminals and supply‑chain partners. These measures do not eliminate disruptions, but they do help limit their impact and prevent small issues from escalating into network‑wide delays.

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Source: Drewry WCI for ocean rates, Freightos for air, Sea-Intellegnece + Xeneta for de reliability, IATA, Reuters, Academic paper (Liner Schedule Reliability Problem: An Empirical Analysis of Disruptions and Recovery Measures in Container Shipping)

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Rulewave Monthly Insight January 2026

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