The peak on routes from Asia ended in July, so there is unlikely to be a shortage of capacity in the fourth quarter. There will be a lack of punctuality - in July, only 56.4% of ships arrived on time, and the average delay reached more than six days. The backlog from Asian ports will return on European corridors throughout Q4 and will hit trade before November 27, refrigerated cargo and just-in-time production the hardest. September is the last moment to provide a volume forecast, book windows and close customs matters - in November the implementation itself remains.
The peak came earlier. Third year in a row
September is the moment when many companies are just starting to talk about November and December. Sales forecasts have been ready for a long time, budgets have been approved, campaigns have been planned. One thing is missing - the decision on when and with what goods are to arrive. This year makes things more difficult than the previous ones, because the market sends contradictory signals. This is the third season in which the peak on routes from Asia ends at the end of July at the latest. Before the pandemic, spot volumes and rates grew from July, through August and September, until the beginning of October - the moment when sending goods from Asia for European holidays ceased to make sense. Some of the European demand moved to late spring and summer, as importers placed orders earlier in response to customs and geopolitical uncertainty. Italian operator Sogese in its August review of the container market takes the normalization of demand in the fourth quarter as a baseline scenario - if goods that would normally flow in the autumn are already in the chain, rates could come under further pressure. For the purchasing department, this sounds like good news. Less pressure on price, more available capacity. The problem is that capacity and punctuality are two different things.Ships sail, just not when they were supposed to sail
In July, the global punctuality of container services fell to 56.4%. This is a decrease of 6.1 percentage points month-on-month, the lowest level in 2026 and the weakest result since February 2025. Year-on-year, punctuality is lower by 8.8 points. The average delay of ships arriving after the deadline has increased to 6.06 days - the highest this year and the most since January 2024. Sea-Intelligence recorded the sharpest one-month decline in punctuality since January 2021. The source is congestion in Asian ports. Punctuality in Shanghai has fallen to a level not recorded there in fourteen years of data collection, if the pandemic period is omitted. Singapore went down to 43.2%, Port Klang to 33.3%, Busan to 40.9%. When more than half of the arriving ships are delayed in the region's busiest ports, the backlog spills further across the network and hits the main head-haul corridors in the following months. The following months are October, November and December to be exact. It is also worth looking at the spread between carriers. In July, only Maersk exceeded the threshold of 70% punctuality, recording 73.7%. Hapag-Lloyd, with a score of 69.3%, was the only carrier in the range of 60-70%. Five more airlines fell between 50 and 60%, with Wan Hai recording the weakest result - 29.8%. None of the thirteen largest carriers improved compared to June. The difference between the best and worst carrier is more than forty percentage points. When planning Q4, this is not a detail. There is another layer that is less often discussed. Sea-Intelligence points out that when evaluating the supply chain, the variability of punctuality from month to month weighs as much as the result itself. A route that reaches 95% in one month and 10% in the next is useless for planning. A route that maintains a stable 80% gives incomparably better predictability. The average from the report therefore says less than how much it jumps.
Who will feel it the most
Black Friday trade and e-commerce falls on November 27. Immediately after it, the Polish gift peak begins - the first two weeks of December, operationally often more difficult than Black Friday itself, because they last longer and end with a rigid delivery date. Just before Black Friday, the number of orders can increase up to five times compared to ordinary days. No one will notice a six-day delay in September. Six days of delay in the second week of November is a product that does not enter the campaign and lands in the January sale with a margin close to zero. The challenge does not end with the container. Suppliers extend lead times before the season, and daily shipping limits on courier accounts set for normal volumes can cut off shipments exactly on the hottest day. Temperature-controlled food products and cargo Refrigerated semi-trailers on destinations from Spain and Portugal are the first to leave the market, and December is the peak for both fresh vegetables and fruits, as well as seasonal products. In addition, there are time windows at the recipient. The retail chain will not accept delivery two hours after the notification just because there was a traffic jam near Barcelona on the way. In the run-up to Christmas, the ramps are occupied for up to a quarter of an hour, and the late transport returns for a new slot - sometimes the next day. Industrial production Plants in Western Europe enter the Christmas break earlier than the Polish calendar indicates. Some lines in the Benelux, Germany and France switch to limited mode as early as mid-December. The component is expected to arrive before the line closes. When operating in just-in-time mode, the cost of downtime is calculated in hours and usually exceeds the entire freight that was supposed to be a saving.Four things that spoil Q4 every year
A forecast that never reaches the operator. The sales department has known the sales plan since May. Logistics learns about it in October. The operator in November. Each subsequent link has less time to react and fewer options to choose from. One source of capacity. A company working with one carrier and one branch of transport does not have a plan B. It only has a phone call where someone says that it is not possible before. A warehouse as a buffer that does not exist. Early collection of goods looks good on paper until it turns out that there is nowhere to put it. Space for the fourth quarter is contracted in the summer, not in November. Documents at the end, instead of at the beginning. Customs clearance, certificates, marking - each of these things can stop cargo for several days. In August, it's a formality. In December, it's a problem, because offices and agencies also work under load.