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Global container port congestion has climbed beyond the levels recorded during the Covid era, removing more than 4.3m teu of capacity from circulation and helping keep freight and charter rates elevated.
Data from Linerlytica shows 4.3m teu is now waiting to berth at container ports worldwide, surpassing the previous absolute peak of 4m teu recorded during the pandemic earlier in the 2020s, the most profitable decade in the history of containerisation.
The comparison comes with an important caveat. Congested tonnage today represents 12.6% of the 34.4m teu global fleet, below the 15.7% peak reached in 2022 when the fleet totalled just 25.3m teu.
East Asia is driving much of the latest spike after successive tropical storms disrupted Chinese port operations and vessel schedules. Portcast data cited this week showed 139 vessels waiting at Shanghai and another 77 at Ningbo, both at highs not seen during 2025 or 2026. Waiting times at Shanghai’s Yangshan terminals have stretched to five or six days for Gemini services and as much as seven or eight days for other carriers.
Sea-Intelligence, using a different methodology, estimates delays are currently removing around 1.7m teu of effective vessel capacity from the market. Schedule reliability remains stuck at around 60-65%, while late ships are arriving an average of five to five-and-a-half days behind schedule, versus three to four days before the pandemic.
The capacity squeeze is providing another prop beneath freight markets already inflated by the Iran war and widespread disruption to normal liner networks.
Linerlytica calculates the Shanghai Containerized Freight Index (SCFI) is now 156% higher than when the Iran conflict began. The SCFI gained again last week to around 3,355 points.
Other benchmarks underline the pressure. S&P Global’s Platts Container Index jumped to $7,565 per feu on August 21, its highest level this year, with analysts citing typhoon-related Asian port delays, space shortages and Panama Canal restrictions. Freightos has similarly identified congestion as an increasingly important driver of freight rates.
More disruption is looming in Panama. The canal will cut available daily transit slots from September as below-normal rainfall forces fresh water-saving measures. Neopanamax slots will fall to nine a day from September 3, with total panamax availability dropping further from September 15.
The resulting shortage of ships is also feeding into the containership charter market, where tonnage remains scarce and demand strong.