2M ranked most reliable shipping alliance over seven years

COPENHAGEN : According to a recent Sea-Intelligence analysis, 2M has been the most constant maritime alliance in terms of schedule reliability between 2017 and 2024.

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.

n 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.