- The current three-alliance structure in container shipping has been in place since April 2017, when Ocean Alliance and THE Alliance launched alongside the existing 2M alliance.
- After nearly 8 years of operations, a new alliance structure will be introduced in February 2025.
According to a recent Sea-Intelligence analysis, 2M has been the most constant maritime alliance regarding schedule reliability between 2017 and 2024.
Alliance schedule reliability
The present three-alliance arrangement in container shipping has existed since April 2017, when OCEAN Alliance and THE Alliance launched alongside the already formed 2M alliance. After nearly eight years of operation, the alliance will be reorganised in February 2025.
Schedule reliability patterns have changed considerably during the last eight years. However, timetable reliability can be difficult to contextualise over longer periods of time, therefore we created a composite score for each year these agreements have been in place.
To calculate this number, Sea-Intelligence looked at how many months each alliance rated first, second, or third in terms of schedule dependability throughout each trade channel. These numbers were then multiplied by 3, 2, and 1 to determine the first, second, and third places. Figure 1 shows the totals for each year.
In terms of schedule reliability, OCEAN Alliance was the most reliable carrier alliance in 2017 and 2018, closely followed by 2M, with THE Alliance behind slightly. In 2019 and 2020, 2M and OCEAN Alliance traded places, but in 2021, OCEAN Alliance fell below even THE Alliance. In 2024, OCEAN Alliance recovered the top rank, but THE Alliance had a considerable increase in schedule reliability, propelling it to second place. In 2024, 2M was the most inconsistent carrier alliance in terms of schedule reliability.
Overall, 2M has been the most constant in terms of schedule reliability over the present alliance structure’s life cycle (2017-2024), with the highest composite score.
They were ranked first in 49 per cent of the occurrences and second in 31 per cent. OCEAN Alliance was the next most trustworthy carrier alliance, ranking first in 36 per cent of cases and second in 39 per cent of cases.
THE Alliance only won 15 per cent of the situations and finished second in 31 per cent of them. Recently, Sea-Intelligence reported that the OCEAN Alliance was the most dominant carrier alliance by deployed capacity since 2017.
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Source: Sea-Intelligence
