Half of Ships Delayed at Asia’s Busiest Ports

Vessel delays at Asia’s busiest container ports have reached crisis levels, with more than half of all incoming ships arriving behind schedule. Analysts at Sea-Intelligence report that all 14 of the region’s largest container ports have seen on-time arrival rates fall sharply. The decline marks the steepest single-month drop since the height of the pandemic disruptions in early 2021.

Typhoons Compound Port Congestion

Shanghai and Ningbo-Zhoushan, the world’s two largest container ports, have been battered by consecutive typhoons this year. Typhoon Saudel struck just last week, adding to existing delays. The storms arrived at a particularly bad time for port operations already struggling with heavy congestion.

Ningbo, which became the world’s second largest container port in the first half of 2026, saw its reliability fall by 20.1 percentage points to just 34.6% in July. That figure comes from Sea-Intelligence data. The port has been dealing with the fallout from earlier weather disruptions while trying to clear a mounting backlog of vessels.

Shanghai’s performance has been described as “particularly alarming” by analysts. The port saw its reliability drop by 19.2 percentage points, resulting in only 21% of vessels arriving on time during July. The decline is striking given the port’s normal operational capacity.

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Regional Port Performance Varies

Alan Murphy, CEO of Sea-Intelligence, noted the severity of the situation. “Outside of extreme pandemic-era supply chain disruptions, schedule reliability in Shanghai has never dropped this low in 14 years of recorded data,” he said.

The largest single drop among top Asian ports occurred at Yantian in South China, where reliability plunged 23.5 percentage points to 48.3% in July. Hong Kong saw a 20.4 percentage point decline, settling at 51.6% for the month.

Singapore, the world’s largest transhipment hub, experienced a 5.7 percentage point drop in reliability, though its figure of 43.2% remains concerning. Other regional ports showed similar struggles. Port Klang reported 33.3% reliability while Busan managed 40.9%.

Overall schedule reliability for container shipping fell to 56.1%, down 6.1 percentage points from the previous month. That represents the sharpest monthly decline since January 2021, according to the analyst’s report.

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Backlogs Threaten Further Disruptions

Maritime industry observers expect the impact to spread beyond the immediate region. “With the region’s busiest ports operating with more than half of their incoming vessels delayed, this backlog will naturally cascade through the maritime network, likely triggering a new wave of delays for critical head-haul trade lanes in the coming months,” Murphy said.

The congestion is already influencing shipping company decisions about route planning. Lines are beginning to reverse course on decisions made during earlier supply chain crises. Carriers are preparing to move Asia-Europe services back through the Suez Canal and the Red Sea despite the ongoing security threat from Houthi activity targeting vessels near Yemen.

The shift represents a significant change in routing strategy. Shipping lines had been rerouting around the Cape of Good Hope for two and a half years to avoid Red Sea dangers. Port congestion appears to be outweighing concerns about maritime security in the region, at least for the time being.