Container shipping is facing a 'long Covid' effect, with vessel delays absorbing capacity at levels two to three times higher than before the pandemic, reports Singapore's Splash 247.

Danish consultancy Sea-Intelligence stated that the lack of reliability has created a new baseline for capacity absorption. Pre-pandemic delays averaged three to four days, but now have settled at 4.5 to 5.5 days.

Market performance between 2011 and 2019 was around 70-80 percent, but post-pandemic reliability has dropped to 50-65 percent. The share of global capacity absorbed by delays has risen from 2.2 percent before the pandemic to between four and six percent today, averaging 5.3 percent in 2023-2026.

Sea-Intelligence noted that the consequence is a permanent loss of vessel capacity equal to the fleet of South Korea's HMM, the world's eighth-largest carrier with more than one million slots. The consultancy emphasized that while delays hurt reliability, they also help carriers curb looming overcapacity.