African Port Waits Ease but Remain Highest Globally

African port waiting times improved to 2.5 days in September, down from September's prior levels, but continue to rank as the worst performance globally according to Xeneta's latest data. However, this improvement is overshadowed by broader shipping reliability collapse: global on-time arrivals fell to just 27%, marking four consecutive monthly declines, with average delays reaching six days across all services. The primary culprit remains typhoon disruption spreading through Asian networks, particularly impacting the critical Far East-Europe lane where on-time performance plummeted to just 4% with average delays of 9.9 days.

Every major carrier tracked by Xeneta recorded its worst 12-month average delay performance, with Maersk's reliability dropping from 51% to 47%, signaling severe pressure across the industry. Singapore's situation deteriorated sharply, with the daily vessel queue nearly doubling from 12 to 22 vessels and waiting times rising from 1.9 to 3.1 days. The capacity crisis will intensify further: announced October cancellations represent at least 17% of planned Far East-Europe capacity and 13% of Far East-North America capacity, creating a structural bottleneck that extends beyond weather-related disruption.

For supply chain professionals, this marks a critical inflection point requiring immediate contract renegotiation and demand rebalancing. Shippers must reassess carrier reliability ratings, service commitments, and capacity allocations during renewal periods, as the traditional bandwidth assumptions underlying logistics networks have fundamentally shifted.