On 22 September 2026, Maritime Professional published a HiFleet Schedule Watch comparing two versions of liner schedules received between 4 and 15 September 2026. Carriers in the sample include Ocean Network Express (ONE), Evergreen Line, SITC, TS Lines, Maersk, CK Line, China United Lines (CULines) and COSCO SHIPPING Lines. The exercise focuses on how congestion pressure at Shanghai and Ningbo is showing up as rotation changes, not only as anchorage waits.
HiFleet counted 57 Shanghai call omissions—cases where the revised schedule linked the preceding port directly to the following port with no substitute inserted—and 18 replacements where another port took Shanghai’s slot (Xiamen six times, Busan five times, together most of the replacements). Of the 57 omissions, 42 (74%) left Ningbo as the next call. That does not mean Ningbo replaced Shanghai: in 74 records Ningbo already appeared in both schedule versions, so carriers often just shortened the rotation by dropping Shanghai ahead of an existing Ningbo call. Separately, 33 revisions omitted Shanghai and Ningbo in the same change.
Subsequent Maersk schedule information received by HiFleet showed seven vessels adding Shanghai calls in early October, underlining that plans remain fluid. HiFleet cautions that schedule diffs alone cannot prove congestion is the cause, and that cargo owners should recheck booking confirmations, customs cutoffs, ports of loading/discharge and onward connections, then cross-check later schedule versions against AIS tracks and berth data.