While Iran’s threats against shipping in the Strait of Hormuz have rattled energy markets and pushed up freight rates since the start of the war in Iran, schedule reliability across global shipping improved in the weeks after—a glaring contrast from what occurred at the start of the Red Sea crisis. According to data from maritime shipping analysis firm Sea-Intelligence, global schedule reliability in March 2026 improved by 3.9 percentage points from the month prior, exceeding normal pre-pandemic seasonal baselines tracked from 2011 to 2019. Those baseline averages typically increased 1.2 percentage points from February to March, with this year’s sequential shift seeing an additional 2.7-percentage-point structural improvement. The story in the Red Sea painted a far different picture for worldwide schedule reliability.…