Global container shipping has entered a new era of persistent service instability, with weekly disruptions now occurring at more than double, and in some cases triple, the rate seen before the pandemic, according to the latest analysis from Sea-Intelligence.

In its Sunday Spotlight Issue 735, the maritime analytics company introduced a new metric to quantify what it calls "non-standard missing or added sailings"—a form of disruption not captured by traditional schedule reliability metrics. The findings point to a structural shift in how liner services operate, with significant implications for shippers.

"Liner shipping is not just the ability to move cargo from one place to another, but the provision of a fixed scheduled weekly service to do so," said Alan Murphy, CEO of Sea-Intelligence.

"Shippers still often face disruptions that may have been scheduled well in advance, and such disruptions will—by definition—not be captured in a measure of vessel schedule reliability."

Sea-Intelligence's new data shows that in the Asia–North America West Coast trade, service instability has settled into a post-pandemic "new normal" of 56%, compared to just 23% in the pre-pandemic years of 2012–2019 or a 2.5-fold increase in weekly disruptions, even after the extreme volatility of the COVID era, when instability peaked above 100%.

"This is not an isolated trend," Murphy said. "Asia–North America East Coast has seen instability increase by a factor of 2.9, while the Asia–North Europe and Asia–Mediterranean trades have seen even more dramatic shifts, with instability increasing by factors of 3.3 and 3.4 respectively," the report added.

The report emphasizes that these disruptions often take the form of blank sailings or delays so severe that a scheduled weekly service effectively skips a week—leaving shippers without a sailing at all. This operational shift, Sea-Intelligence argues, is a key reason why many cargo owners continue to report poor service levels despite improvements in on-time arrival statistics.

Murphy concluded, "Our analysis reveals a fundamental shift… shippers face far more frequent disruptions, where scheduled weekly services are either cancelled or delayed so severely that they slide into the next week."

Sea-Intelligence's findings suggest that for many global trades, volatility has not subsided—it has simply evolved into a more normalized, but still disruptive, pattern.