Durban faces severe congestion with 85,000 TEU waiting offshore and delays exceeding five days for arrivals and departures.
Nearly 85,000 TEU of container capacity is currently waiting outside Durban, while arrival and departure delays remain above five days.
Port congestion at Durban, South Africa's principal container gateway, remains severe. Container vessels continue to face prolonged waiting times, significant schedule delays, and a substantial accumulation of capacity offshore. For cargo owners who depend on the port, current conditions present a sustained risk to transit times, delivery commitments, and equipment availability.
According to Kuehne+Nagel data for the past seven days, container vessels have spent an average of 7.46 days at anchorage before calling at Durban. This means vessels are spending more than a week idle before berthing.
Schedule reliability has deteriorated accordingly. Over the last 30 days, container vessels recorded an average arrival delay of 6.02 days and an average departure delay of 5.59 days.
Data from GoComet, which applies its own measurement methodology, indicates a median vessel delay of 15 days. Taken together, the indicators confirm that disruption at the port is broad rather than confined to isolated services.
The composition of the current vessel queue illustrates the scale of the disruption. As of 2 November, six container vessels were waiting in Durban's designated anchorage areas, and another 11 vessels were waiting farther offshore. Combined, these 17 vessels represent almost 85,000 TEU (twenty-foot equivalent units, the standard measure of container capacity) awaiting access to the port.
Vessel tracking data from the Automatic Identification System (AIS) provides a particularly striking example. The APL Charleston, a container vessel with a capacity of 9,326 TEU, has been waiting off Durban since 21 October. Its latest predicted arrival is 4 November, approximately two weeks after it joined the queue.
The available figures indicate that congestion at Durban constitutes a structural challenge rather than a temporary interruption. Although conditions may fluctuate from week to week, meaningful improvement is not currently expected until toward the end of the first quarter of 2027.
The present situation is also atypical for the season. Historically, market demand has eased toward the end of October and throughout November. This year, however, ongoing supply constraints are expected to keep market conditions elevated for longer than is typically observed.
For cargo owners, this means continued uncertainty about transit times, delivery dates, and equipment availability. Importers and exporters should therefore plan around the congestion rather than assume that schedules will normalize in the near term.
With average waiting times above seven days, 17 vessels in the queue, and almost 85,000 TEU of capacity held offshore, Durban remains a critical congestion point for South African container supply chains. Over the coming months, cargo owners should prioritize operational resilience over reliance on published schedules. Recommended measures include lead-time buffers: Building additional contingency into planned lead times protects customer commitments and inventory positions against extended delays. Vessel monitoring: Tracking vessel movements closely, including through AIS-based visibility tools, enables earlier identification of slippage and more timely adjustments to downstream planning. Alternative gateways: Evaluating other South African ports, such as Ngqura, Port Elizabeth, or Cape Town, before delays become critical allows routing decisions to be based on current conditions at each gateway rather than under time pressure.
Close coordination with freight forwarders and carriers further supports these measures by enabling timely access to revised arrival estimates and routing options.
Importers should also prepare for terminals and depots to remain active for cargo receivals throughout the December holiday period. Many businesses traditionally scale down operations once most cargo has been delivered by mid-December. This year, however, continued supply constraints and sustained cargo volumes could extend activity well beyond the usual year-end slowdown.
Importers should therefore align staffing, transport, and receiving capacity with this extended operating window. Adequate readiness will help prevent delayed containers from becoming storage costs, missed sales, or unfulfilled customer orders once they arrive.
