Transit Times, Shipment Tracking and Handling Delays

How to plan transit times, track containers by B/L or container number, and handle delays, rollovers, free time, demurrage and letter of credit dates.

Your buyer will ask two questions about every shipment: when will it arrive, and where is it now? Answering them well, and early, is part of being a reliable supplier. Answering them badly, or learning about a delay from the buyer, costs you trust, and often money in demurrage, storage or discounts.

Transit times in international shipping are estimates, not promises. Vessels are delayed by weather and congestion, containers are rolled to later sailings, transshipment connections are missed, and customs inspections add days. The exporter's job is not to prevent all of this, but to plan realistic times, track each milestone, detect problems early and limit their consequences.

This lesson explains how a door-to-door transit time is built, how to track a shipment, what the common causes of delay are, and a step-by-step method for handling a delay, including free time and letter of credit dates. A worked example follows a container of pasta and couscous from Algiers to Montreal.

How is transit time built?

The time quoted by a carrier is usually port to port, from departure to arrival. The time that matters to your buyer is door to door:

Watch the cut-offs in the booking confirmation: the shipping instructions (documentation) cut-off for the bill of lading data, the VGM cut-off, and the container yard (CY) cut-off for the full container to be in the terminal. Missing any of them means the container is rolled to the next sailing.

Indicative sea transit times from Algeria

These figures are only orders of magnitude. Routings change, and since late 2023 many Asia–Europe services have sailed around the Cape of Good Hope instead of through the Red Sea and Suez, adding roughly 10 to 14 days; in 2026 carriers are returning to Suez to varying degrees. Always ask for the current routing and transshipment ports.

How do you track a shipment?

You need one of three references:

• the booking number given by the carrier or forwarder;
• the bill of lading number;
• the container number (four letters and seven digits, for example CMAU 123456 7).

Enter it on the shipping line's tracking page or your forwarder's portal. The milestones you will see:

1. Empty container released to the shipper (gate-out empty).
2. Full container received at the terminal (gate-in full).
3. Loaded on vessel; vessel departure (ATD).
4. Discharged at transshipment port; loaded on the connecting vessel.
5. Vessel arrival at destination (ATA); container discharged.
6. Container released and collected (gate-out full).
7. Empty container returned (gate-in empty).

The ETA (estimated time of arrival) changes as the voyage goes on; the ATA (actual time of arrival) is the fact. Vessel positions can be followed with AIS tracking services, useful to check whether an ETA is still credible.

For your own records, it helps to map milestones to a few clear statuses: pending (booked, not yet loaded), shipped (loaded on board, B/L issued), in transit (sailing or transshipment), cleared (released by customs at destination) and delivered (received by the buyer).

What causes shipping delays?

• Rollover: the container is not loaded on the planned vessel because of overbooking, late delivery, missing VGM or documents, or weight limits.
• Blank sailings: the carrier cancels a sailing to adjust capacity; cargo moves to the next one.
• Missed transshipment connections: the first vessel arrives late at the hub, the connecting vessel leaves without the container.
• Port congestion and weather: waiting at anchor, closed ports during storms.
• Route diversions: security risks, canal restrictions.
• Documents: originals not received by the buyer, errors on the bill of lading, missing certificates.
• Customs: inspection, scanning, classification or valuation queries; see customs clearance.
• Payment: a buyer who has not paid cannot obtain documents, so the container waits in the terminal.

Global schedule reliability has often been low in recent years, with a large share of vessels arriving a day or more late. Build a buffer into the delivery date you promise, especially on transshipped routes.

How to handle a delay, step by step

1. Confirm the facts with the forwarder or carrier: cause, new vessel, new ETA, transshipment port.
2. Inform the buyer the same day, in writing, with the new estimate and what you are doing. Buyers forgive delays more easily than silence.
3. Check your contract: the agreed delivery or shipment date, penalties, force majeure clause, and which party bears the risk at this stage under the Incoterms® 2020 rule agreed.
4. Check your letter of credit, if any: the latest shipment date and the expiry date. If the goods have not yet been loaded and the latest shipment date is at risk, ask the buyer for an amendment before the date passes. If they are already on board, the shipment date is the on-board date on the bill of lading; but documents must still be presented within the period stated in the credit (21 days after shipment by default under UCP 600) and before expiry. See letters of credit.
5. Protect free time: ask the carrier, through your forwarder, for extra free time at destination when the delay is the carrier's doing, and make sure documents reach the buyer before arrival so the container can be cleared quickly.
6. For perishables, ask for the reefer download and monitor temperatures; see reefers and perishables.
7. Record everything: emails, new schedules, extra costs. You will need them for any negotiation or claim.

Demurrage and detention when delays hit

A late vessel does not usually cause demurrage by itself: free time starts when the container is discharged. Demurrage starts when the buyer cannot collect the container in time, often because documents are late, the cargo is inspected, or the buyer is not ready to receive a container that arrives at the same time as the next one.

The tariffs and the difference between demurrage, detention and storage are explained in ocean freight costs.

Worked example: pasta and couscous from Algiers to Montreal

A food company ships a 40' high cube of pasta and couscous (22 pallets, 18.4 tonnes) to an importer in Montreal, CFR Montreal, payment by letter of credit with a latest shipment date of 10 October 2026.

What the exporter did:

• On 13 October, tracking showed the container still at the hub. The forwarder confirmed the rollover. The exporter emailed the buyer the same day with the new ETA.
• The letter of credit was not affected: the bill of lading showed 5 October as the on-board date, before the 10 October limit, and the documents were presented to the bank on 9 October, within the 21-day period.
• The exporter asked the forwarder to obtain three extra days of free time from the carrier, since the rollover was the carrier's decision.
• The original documents were released by the bank and couriered to the buyer, who had them two weeks before arrival and pre-cleared the goods.

The delay of eight days cost nothing beyond some inconvenience, because it was detected early and the documents were ready. Without the free-time extension and early documents, demurrage would likely have run for a week or more.

Common mistakes with transit times and tracking

• Promising the buyer a port-to-port time as a delivery date.
• Not checking whether the container was actually loaded after the cut-off.
• Learning about a rollover from the buyer.
• Letting a letter of credit's latest shipment date pass without asking for an amendment.
• Sending original documents late, then paying demurrage.
• Expecting insurance or the carrier to pay for delay.

These steps fit into the wider export process, from enquiry to payment.

Putting it into practice

On Incoforms, each shipment holds its parties, ports, vessel and container numbers, and a status that you move from pending to shipped, in transit, cleared and delivered as the milestones happen. You can attach the booking confirmation, the bill of lading, the arrival notice and correspondence about delays to the shipment, so the whole history is in one place when the buyer, the bank or the insurer asks.