As a micro example of shocking port delays, on a future trip,...

As a micro example of shocking port delays, on a future trip, the vessel M/V ANl Gippsland (CMA-CGM: French owned, which typically uses QUB competitor DP World in Australia on a future voyage from mainland China to east coast Australia is scheduled to arrive Brisbane on day 1, then as usual sail down to Melbourne and back up to Sydney, departing the latter on day 11 bound again for China.

However the current voyage, which sees it running late in common with many other container vessels has it changing rotation (the order of ports) due to 'congestion, this time in Sydney, so first it calls at the Port of Melbourne, then Brisbane and finally Botany Bay in Sydney. The whole shebang is to take 20 days from arrival at an Oz port to departure, so that's almost twice as long as ought be the case. Note the inefficiency of the changed maritime route that involves backtracking along the Australian coast.

This imposes big costs on importers and exporters alike plus arguably the whole transport chain. Consumers waiting for goods such as furniture or (not carried in container ships, but unpunctuality nonetheless) passenger motor vehicles are among the many adversely affected. Think of the delays for refrigerated cargo in 'reefer' containers that ought be at destination by a particular date, or within a few days thereafter to avoid product deterioration:

https://www.anl.com.au/ebusiness/schedules/voyage/detail?voyageReference=0AJBOS1NL&searchMode=PreviousVessel