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SolitAir adds new African routes

Dubai-based cargo airline SolitAir has launched flights to Port Harcourt International Airport, Nigeria and Egal International Airport in Hargeisa, Somaliland, taking the carrier's African network to 20 destinations across 16 countries. A SolitAir statement noted that Port Harcourt International Airport "sits at the heart of Nigeria's oil and gas economy and ranks among the country's busiest cargo gateways", while Egal International Airport "anchors a region whose exports - from livestock to time-sensitive agricultural goods - depend on reliable dedicated freighter capacity". According to the carrier's founder and chief executive, Hamdi Osman: "Nigeria and Somaliland are important additions to our African network, giving us an opportunity to strengthen connections between the Gulf and these markets. As we continue to expand, we're focused on identifying destinations where there is clear demand for reliable air cargo services and where we can add value to existing trade flows. "These routes were built around real customer demand. Port Harcourt and Hargeisa are good examples of how we're developing the network - by looking at where our partners need to move cargo and building connections that support those trade flows," Osman added. SolitAir has also been expanding its network elsewhere this year, adding flights to Bulgaria, China, Romania and Kyrgyzstan. The dedicated B2B express middle-mile cargo airline, which operates a fleet of seven Boeing 737-800BCF aircraft, now connects its home hub at Dubai World Central Al Maktoum International Airport with over 60 destinations in Asia, Africa and Europe.

OceanX: Japan blossom; Hong Kong revival; and South China is wet

My Asia Tour continued last week with Tokyo, Hong Kong and Guangzhou on the menu. Tokyo It is always special to return to Japan. The discipline and dedication that people bring to even the simplest everyday tasks, impresses me every time. As usual, it takes a few hours to adjust to the Japanese system, for trains, for payments etc etc - but once you are back in it, you can slot in with the locals and not disrupt the flow of the ...

Port congestion on Asia sees liner schedule reliability plummet

Global container shipping line reliability suffered its sharpest monthly decline in more than five years in July, as worsening congestion at major Asian ports sent on-time performance plunging. According to Sea-Intelligence, global schedule reliability fell 6.1 percentage points month on month, to 56.4% in July - the steepest single-month decline recorded since January 2021. The analyst said there had been just eight occasions in the past 14 years when global reliability had fallen by at least 6.1 percentage points in a month, three during the Covid pandemic. Average delay for late arrivals in July rose just over half a day, to 6.06 days, the largest monthly average increase since January 2024. The disruption was heavily concentrated on services heading into Asia, with major back-haul trades from North America and Europe particularly badly affected. Reliability on the North America-Asia tradelane fell 8.3 percentage points across 1,841 vessel arrivals, while Europe-Asia plunged 11.2 points across 1,045 arrivals, west coast South America-Asia dropped 12.3 percentage points, and Oceania-Asia fell 9.1 points. Taken together, the North America-Asia and Europe-Asia trades recorded an average reliability decline of 9.7 percentage points and accounted for 17% of all tradelane vessel arrivals. Across all eight major tradelanes ending in Asia, reliability fell an average of 7.5 percentage points. These services represented 39% of all tradelane arrivals in July. Sea-Intelligence said the concentration of declines across multiple origins pointed to "a widespread issue affecting the return flow of vessels into Asian hubs, rather than an isolated problem at a single origin port". Port data provides a clearer indication of the cause. Schedule reliability declined at all 14 of Asia's busiest ports in July, which together handle about 87% of the region's deepsea container traffic. Yantian suffered the largest decline, reliability plunging 23.5 percentage points, to 48.3%; Hong Kong fell 20.4 points; Ningbo 20.1 points; and Shanghai 19.2 points. The Loadstar reported yesterday that following Typhoon Saudel last week, impacts of port congestion had worsened. Shanghai was among the worst affected, with just 21% of vessels arriving on schedule. Ningbo's reliability fell to 34.6%, while Shekou stood at only 27.4%. Sea-Intelligence described Shanghai's performance as "exceptionally unusual", and highlighted that, excluding pandemic-era disruption, the port's reliability had never been so low in 14 years of recorded data. Singapore, the region's busiest port by vessel arrivals in July, alongside Ningbo and Shanghai, saw a smaller 5.7 point decline, but reliability still fell to a worrying 43.2%. However, the scale of the disruption raises concerns that the impact will spread beyond Asia. Sea-Intelligence warned that when the region's three busiest ports have more than half their incoming vessels delayed, the resulting backlog could "cascade through the entire maritime network". It added that this could also "trigger a new wave of delays for the critical head-haul trades in the months to follow."