Demand Remains the Key Variable in 2026 Peak Season Shipping, Sogese Report Finds

International Shipping News — 11 August 2026

Global schedule reliability declined to 62.6% in June, down from 64.5% in May, according to Sea-Intelligence's Global Liner Performance report, cited in the latest Sogese update. Nearly four in every ten vessel arrivals worldwide missed their published schedule, with late vessels averaging 5.3 days behind schedule.

Reliability varied significantly between carriers. Maersk led the top 13 carriers at 77.1%, followed by Hapag-Lloyd at 75.6% and MSC at 72.1%. Only three carriers surpassed the 70% threshold. Among alliances, Gemini Cooperation — the Maersk–Hapag-Lloyd partnership built around a hub-and-spoke network designed for consistency over port-call frequency — achieved 93.4% reliability, compared with Premier Alliance's 53.6%. For shippers, reliability now hinges on the specific carrier and service booked, as well as broader market conditions.

"Peak season used to test how much capacity a business could secure. Today it tests how consistently it can execute. The companies that perform best this year will not necessarily move more containers. They will make fewer planning revisions, position inventory earlier, and sustain operational discipline for longer."

— Andrea Monti, CEO & Managing Director, Sogese

The gap between available capacity and predictable capacity is shaping the current peak season more than headline vessel supply figures suggest. Earlier procurement decisions, prolonged inventory replenishment, continued Cape of Good Hope routings — the diversion around Africa that has persisted since Houthi attacks in the Red Sea made Suez Canal transit commercially unviable for most liner services — and more selective carrier capacity deployment have distributed demand across a wider portion of the calendar. Cargo continues to move, but the consistency and predictability that traditional planning models rely on have weakened.

For logistics operators, this shifts where operational pressure accumulates. Warehouse utilisation remains elevated for extended periods, inventory lingers in the network longer, transport plans require more frequent adjustment, and planning teams have fewer opportunities to reset between successive demand waves. Many businesses are now sustaining high activity levels across several months rather than managing a single concentrated surge.

Freight Rates Turned as Reliability Fell

Drewry's World Container Index reached $4,639 per 40ft container on 9 July — the highest level since September 2024 — before easing 3% to $4,255 by 30 July as rates softened across both Asia–Europe and trans-Pacific lanes. Sogese notes that disciplined capacity management would typically support firmer rates rather than a decline. The report states that the simultaneous movement of both trends in the same month suggests demand was pulling back faster than carriers were reducing capacity, meaning current freight rate levels cannot be assumed to hold.

The global container fleet is expanding by 5 to 6% this year, but Sogese estimates that close to a fifth of that nominal capacity is not effectively reaching the market. Cape of Good Hope routing alone absorbs an estimated 2.5 million TEU and adds one to two weeks to transit times on affected services. Slow steaming and port congestion account for most of the remaining gap between vessel supply and usable capacity.

"Europe's logistics system has become considerably more resilient over the past two years, but resilience should not be mistaken for normalisation. The network is performing because operators have adapted, not because the underlying operating environment has fundamentally improved, and that adaptation is now being tested again."

— Andrea Monti, CEO & Managing Director, Sogese

Demand Shifted Earlier in the Year

The update also identifies a change in timing rather than overall volume. Importers accelerated purchase orders ahead of the traditional peak, concentrating demand into late Q2 and early Q3. At the Port of Rotterdam — Europe's largest container port and a primary gateway for Asia–Europe trade — deep-sea container volumes rose 5.2% in TEU terms during the first half of 2026, driven by an 8% increase in imports from Asia. However, overall container throughput remained flat as transhipment volumes fell 20% due to capacity constraints — meaning higher demand on core lanes did not translate into increased total flow through the port.

Sogese attributes this front-loading to tariff and geopolitical uncertainty rather than a rise in underlying consumption, which leaves fourth-quarter restocking more exposed than current planning assumes.

Sogese Expects Demand to Normalise in the Fourth Quarter

The update outlines three scenarios for the remainder of 2026. Sogese's base case is Scenario 2 — demand normalisation: a larger share of current freight demand proves to have been front-loaded, freight rates correct further during the fourth quarter, and effective vessel capacity increases as inventories rebalance. Sogese expects carriers to manage this transition through blank sailings — the cancellation of scheduled voyages to withdraw capacity — and network adjustments rather than a sharp correction.

Sogese characterises demand normalisation as the more likely outcome, though not a certainty, and specifies the conditions under which the alternative scenarios would unfold:

• Scenario 1 — Disciplined Stability: Carriers sustain the same capacity discipline observed through July, and freight rates ease only gradually while remaining above long-term averages.
• Scenario 3 — Renewed Volatility: A fresh geopolitical shock or trade policy shift again pulls bookings forward, keeping rates and schedule reliability under pressure into the fourth quarter.

The report states that capacity decisions are now shaped less by expected volumes than by uncertainty over when those volumes will arrive. For this reason, Sogese frames maintaining flexibility as equally important to forecasting total demand.

"The real question is not whether disruption continues. It is how the market behaves once this peak unwinds. Carrier discipline and inventory levels will decide whether today's balance holds or a new phase of volatility begins, and businesses that plan for both outcomes will be better placed than those betting on a single scenario."

— Andrea Monti, CEO & Managing Director, Sogese

Source: Sogese via Hellenic Shipping News