Uncalculated voyage alternatives are quietly eroding fleet profitability, and operators that fail to surface them are leaving real money on the table, according to Natalia Liashenko, CEO of Marine Solver, writing in Splash247.
Shipping is entering an era of technological pragmatism, Liashenko wrote. It is no longer enough to promise that technology will make operations faster or smarter; companies want measurable results and a clear path to return on investment. Software, integration and training all have visible costs. But in commercial fleet planning, there is another side to the equation: the cost of an opportunity a company never discovered.
The invisible cost in fleet planning
Economics has long recognised opportunity cost — the value of the best alternative forgone. But a complex Decision Space raises a harder question, Liashenko argued: what if the better alternative was never considered? Imagine a vessel fixes a profitable cargo and its execution is expertly optimised for speed, fuel and weather. Another combination, however, might have delivered a better result, stronger positioning or a more profitable voyage sequence. If that alternative was never calculated, the loss remains invisible.
"A bad decision leaves evidence – an undiscovered better decision leaves none."
Liashenko identified four forms of hidden cost in fleet planning, each eroding value differently and compounding over time:
- Undiscovered opportunity cost — the value of a voyage combination that was never calculated.
- Time-to-decision cost — the erosion of an opportunity while alternatives are assessed manually.
- Path-dependency cost — the way today's choice constrains tomorrow's options.
- Optimisation ceiling — the limit of improving a voyage that was already selected.
| Hidden cost | How it erodes value |
|---|---|
| Undiscovered opportunity cost | A better cargo, laycan or vessel sequence is never evaluated, so its profit is lost with no evidence. |
| Time-to-decision cost | A cargo can disappear or a laycan close while a planner is still comparing options manually. |
| Path-dependency cost | A chosen voyage positions the vessel sub-optimally for the next market, carrying the loss forward. |
| Optimisation ceiling | Weather routing and fuel management improve the chosen voyage but cannot recover the value of a better voyage never found. |
The Decision Space grows beyond human analysis
The challenge in fleet planning is not simply choosing the best option among those already known, according to the Splash247 article; the alternatives themselves first have to be discovered. Even a small set of vessels, cargoes, laycans (laydays/cancelling windows) and operational constraints quickly creates a combinatorial Decision Space. Add mandatory cargoes, vessel-cargo restrictions, sequencing, future positioning and environmental metrics, and the possibilities move beyond sequential human analysis. An experienced professional may be exceptionally good at identifying sensible options, Liashenko acknowledged, but the human mind still has to reduce the search space, so the best option considered and the best option available remain fundamentally different things.
Time is a second hidden cost
Fleet planning happens in a moving market, Liashenko wrote. While alternatives are assessed manually, a cargo can disappear, another can emerge, a laycan can close or a vessel position can change. Human analysis therefore competes with both combinatorial complexity and market speed. An opportunity available when the comparison began may no longer exist when the decision is ready.
The ceiling of execution optimisation
Modern maritime technologies are extremely good at improving a voyage once selected, Liashenko argued. Weather routing, speed optimisation and fuel management create real, measurable value, but there is a natural ceiling to that efficiency. Execution optimisation can improve the voyage that was chosen, but it cannot recover the value of a better voyage that was never discovered. Today's choice shapes tomorrow's options through vessel positioning, the next available market and, over time, annual Carbon Intensity Indicator (CII) performance and the longer-horizon FuelEU Maritime compliance balance. Today's missed opportunity quietly reshapes tomorrow's Decision Space, and the cost travels forward through the sequence of decisions that follows.
Making alternatives visible
This is where specialised decision and optimisation technology takes a different role, Liashenko wrote. Its purpose is not to give one supposedly "correct" answer, but to calculate feasible alternatives fast enough to present several strong scenarios and the trade-offs between them. A single calculation is not enough either. What-If analysis can test whether a preferred solution remains robust when fuel prices, laycans, costs or assumptions shift — or whether a small change produces a very different fleet plan. The final decision still belongs to the human manager; the difference is that the decision-maker can see more alternatives and understand the economic price of rejecting them.
For freight forwarders, 3PL operators and shipowners, the practical takeaway from Liashenko's argument is that voyage selection tools must be judged not only on how well they optimise a chosen voyage, but on how many quality alternatives they surface before the market moves. The hidden cost of the voyage never considered is now a direct input into fleet profitability, CII ratings and FuelEU compliance balances.
Watch list
- Annual CII performance — every voyage choice shapes the vessel's Carbon Intensity Indicator, making undiscovered better alternatives more costly over time, according to Liashenko.
- FuelEU Maritime compliance balance — the longer-horizon European regulation makes the sequence of voyages a cumulative compliance factor.
- Market speed — cargoes, laycans and vessel positions shift while alternatives are assessed manually, so the time-to-decision cost grows as markets move faster.
- Adoption of What-If analysis — whether fleet planners begin stress-testing voyage plans against shifts in fuel prices, laycans and assumptions.
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