A chart from Sea-Intelligence tracking the containment speed of every major container shipping disruption since 2012 has sparked debate about the industry's resilience. The data shows accelerating recovery times — three months after the 2014 US West Coast labour dispute, one month after the Hanjin collapse in 2016, 15 to 26 months for the pandemic, two months for the Red Sea crisis — but the Hormuz crisis remains unresolved, marked with a question mark. Analysts interviewed by Splash247 offered contrasting views on what the chart really means.
Recovery Times by Disruption
| Disruption Event | Recovery Time |
|---|---|
| 2014 US West Coast labour dispute | 3 months |
| Hanjin collapse 2016 | 1 month |
| Pandemic | 15–26 months |
| Red Sea crisis | 2 months |
| Hormuz crisis | Still unresolved (question mark) |
Trading Speed for Stability
Imaad Asad, shipping analyst at Sea-Intelligence, argued that the industry has not eliminated chaos but is absorbing it better. According to Asad, “The chaos hasn't disappeared; the shipping networks are just absorbing them better. Shipping lines have fundamentally shifted their operational strategy to proactively adding buffers into their schedules. During the pandemic, the lack of transit buffers meant that any disruption quickly cascaded into a system-wide failure. Now, by structurally extending transit times upfront, shipping lines are absorbing the shock of these events before they can spread.” He concluded the industry traded speed for stability, and the chart flatters the outcome.
The Role of Excess Capacity
Simon Heaney, container shipping analyst at Drewry, pointed to a structural explanation. Heaney said, “As usual it’s a combination of factors. The crises are of vastly different magnitudes; for container shipping Hormuz is significantly less operationally disruptive than Red Sea diversions, which in turn was relatively minor compared to covid.” He added that an excess of ships has been central to the industry’s improved shock absorption. “The industry has learned to adapt to a state of perma-crisis, which is helped by having an excess of ships to move about the chess board. Therefore, disruption has diminishing returns for liners. The golden ticket for them is when an event causes a demand upsurge and logistics capacity crunch at the same time. That has happened only on a small scale with Hormuz.”
Scale of Disruption Matters
Judah Levine, head of research at Freightos, agreed that scale matters above all else. He noted that the pandemic caused unprecedented congestion across major ports globally, explaining the record-long recovery time. The Red Sea crisis impacted a smaller share of overall container volumes and had a viable alternative in the Cape of Good Hope routing, enabling recovery even as diversions continued. Hormuz operationally touched only the 2–3% of global volumes that would typically transit the strait. “The level of delays and recovery times are mostly commensurate with the degree of the disruptions,” Levine said, while noting that pandemic-era lessons — particularly carriers holding on to excess capacity as a readiness buffer — are now being applied as new crises arise.
A Counterpoint: Delays Are Getting Worse
Not everyone read the chart as a success story. Peter Tirschwell, founder of the TPM conference, pushed back firmly. “What is most relevant is that delays are getting worse as time goes on, not that recovery from shocks may be occurring faster.” He pointed to the recently published Container Port Performance Index from the World Bank, which tracks lifts per hour data and has never recovered post-covid. “Container carrier leaders speak of long-term worsening of port delays as a reality the industry will have to face likely for years to come.”
Peter Sand, chief analyst at Xeneta, argued that the frequency and nature of disruptions had changed. “The frequency of disruptions is higher since the onset of covid — and the impact is more severe compared to pre-covid.” He warned against treating crises as interchangeable, saying “Crises are always different. If you fail to distinguish the differences and thus also the impact — you get h...” (the source text cuts off).
For shippers and operators, the mixed messages from analysts underscore a new reality: carriers are proactively building in buffers, meaning slower but more predictable schedules. Excess capacity provides a cushion against cascading failures, but underlying port delays are structurally worsening. Freight forwarders and logistics managers should prepare for longer transit times on many routes, even as the industry becomes more adept at absorbing shocks. The next crisis, regardless of its nature, will test whether these adaptations hold.
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