Geospatial resilience of shipping alliances: Navigating the Red Sea crisis

Abstract

In recent years, various disruptions have had widespread effects on the shipping industry, making the resilience of shipping companies increasingly crucial. Limited research has linked resilience with the operational strategies of shipping alliances. This paper addresses this gap by proposing a framework that describes how alliances adjust their operations at a spatial level in response to crises, using the Red Sea crisis as a case study. By leveraging extensive shipping satellite data, data mining algorithms, and appropriately developed models, the response strategies, performance, and network characteristics of the three main shipping alliances are assessed. The findings reveal that during the crisis, the shipping networks of the alliances became significantly more dispersed, with alliances increasing their port skipping rates to maintain relatively stable schedule reliability. Ports in the Red Sea region were skipped the most, and other ports in Asia and the Middle East also showed some increase. Meanwhile, vessel allocation and port coverage remained relatively stable. We also discussed the possible relationship between response strategies and the performance of alliances and suggested that increasing port skipping can improve their performance during a crisis. This research provides insights into the resilience of shipping alliances when confronted with unexpected disruptions.