Xeneta’s August 2026 Schedule Reliability Scorecard, summarised by the World Ports Organization on 18 September 2026, reports global on-time arrivals at 29%, a 4 percentage-point drop from July after an equal drop from June (37%) to July (33%). That makes August the second-worst global reading in the past 12 months. Average delay moved almost in lockstep, rising from 4.2 days in July to 5.1 days in August.
Trade-level detail is sharper. Far East–Europe fell to 6% on-time with 8.2 days average delay — levels Xeneta compares with late-2021 pandemic lows. Africa dropped 15 points to 21% on-time; South America East Coast fell 12 points to 34%. Xeneta links the Far East–Europe collapse partly to four consecutive China typhoons that left about 1.1 million TEU laid up at Ningbo, Shanghai and Yantian the week after Typhoon Saudel, with knock-on berth delays expected in Europe and North America through September and into October.
Among carriers, ten of the top twelve declined in August; six hit 12-month lows (Hapag-Lloyd, CMA CGM, PIL, HMM, Wan Hai, Yang Ming). Maersk (51%) and Hapag-Lloyd (46%) still lead but fell 6 and 7 points respectively, while Cosco fell to 22%. Xeneta notes a roughly 45 percentage-point performance spread across carriers — so carrier and service selection remains one of the few reliability levers shippers control ahead of Mid-Autumn (25–27 Sep) and Golden Week (1–7 Oct) booking compression.