Global port congestion is temporarily absorbing a significant share of containership capacity, masking a potential supply shock as carriers take delivery of new vessels and progressively restore services through the Suez Canal.

Data from Sea-Intelligence shows that worsening delays have made 6.6% of the global containership fleet effectively unavailable. That compares with about 5% in June and a pre-pandemic baseline of 2.2%.

The disruption is currently tying up an estimated 2.3m teu of vessel capacity. On a standalone basis, that volume would be sufficient to rank as the world’s sixth-largest container carrier, only slightly behind Hapag-Lloyd.

Operational performance deteriorated rapidly in July. Global schedule reliability fell by 6.1 percentage points to 56.4%, marking the steepest monthly decline since January 2021. Vessels arriving late were an average of 6.06 days behind schedule, a delay level largely associated with the pandemic period and the immediate aftermath of the Red Sea crisis.

Asian ports were at the centre of the decline. Schedule reliability worsened at all 14 of the region’s busiest ports during July, as successive typhoons placed further pressure on already stretched terminal networks. Reliability dropped to 21% at Shanghai and 34.6% at Ningbo, while Singapore recorded 43.2%.

Other congestion indicators point to a similarly severe strain on port operations. Linerlytica estimated that more than 4.3m teu of containership capacity was waiting to berth worldwide, exceeding the absolute peak recorded during the Covid period. Drewry has also reported that global vessel waiting times have nearly doubled compared with 2019, with ports facing increasingly concentrated waves of arrivals.

However, the effective capacity constraint created by congestion could unwind within months. Based on earlier disruption cycles, Sea-Intelligence estimates that conditions could take around four-and-a-half to six months to return to the lows recorded in June 2025. A recovery to end-2025 levels could take between two and three-and-a-half months.

This possible release of delayed tonnage would coincide with a broader change in network deployment. MSC, Maersk, CMA CGM and other carriers are gradually returning services to the Suez route, with about 19% of Asia-Europe capacity now moving back from the longer Cape routing.

Sea-Intelligence calculates that full normalisation through Suez would lead to an 8.7% year-on-year contraction in global head-haul teu-mile demand during the first half of 2027, even with underlying container demand assumed to grow by 6.6%. A 50% return to Suez would still move teu-mile growth into negative territory.

The potential reduction in voyage distances is particularly significant because the containership orderbook already represents around 40% of the existing fleet. Congestion is therefore providing short-term support by removing capacity from circulation, but a rapid improvement in port conditions alongside further Suez normalisation could expose the market to a much larger vessel supply imbalance.