Worsening port congestion has made about 6.6 per cent of the global container fleet unavailable for normal operations, according to Sea-Intelligence data from late August.

Waiting times at Shanghai's Yangshan terminals have stretched to eight to ten days for some services. In early September, 328 containerships were at anchor or waiting for a berth, partly due to typhoon backlogs in China.

The congestion is driven by strong cargo demand and continued disruption from the Red Sea crisis. Maersk has said it is gradually restoring services through the Suez Canal, with about one-third of its normal Suez cargo back on the route.

Meanwhile, the orderbook for new ships stands at 12.98 million TEU across 1,592 vessels, about 38.3 per cent of the existing fleet. Analysts say port infrastructure cannot expand at the same pace as ship capacity.

Maersk expects freight rates to stay volatile, with congestion-driven spikes followed by corrections as local bottlenecks ease.