Transit Time

A quoted ocean transit covers the sailing, not the whole trip. It leaves out the days spent on pickup, export filing, waiting for the sailing, customs release and final delivery, so a 30-day sailing is not a 30-day lead time.

Port-to-port vs. door-to-door

Carrier schedules advertise port-to-port transit. For planning, the number that matters is door-to-door, which adds two legs:

• Origin leg: pickup, container stuffing, delivery to the container yard before the CY cut-off, and export filing
• Destination leg: discharge, customs release, drayage and delivery

Each leg can add days or weeks, depending on the port, the cut-off you catch and whether customs holds the container.

What a quoted transit includes

• Included: sailing time and, on a transshipment service, the wait and reloading at the hub
• Not included: the gap between the cargo-ready date and the cut-off, dwell at the origin terminal before loading, the vessel's wait for a berth, dwell at the destination yard, customs examination, drayage and any inland rail or truck leg
• Counted differently: some carriers count from vessel departure, others from the CY cut-off or the estimated departure; ask which

Why actual transit differs from the schedule

A schedule is a plan. Blank sailings, port omissions, congestion and weather push the arrival date back. Hubs such as Singapore, Colombo or Port Klang add connection time that a "direct" quote may not show. And the same port pair can be served by a fast direct loop and a slower multi-stop one at different rates.

Air freight has the same issue in miniature: the flight takes hours, but consolidation, connections and terminal handling set the airport-to-airport transit.

How Airlift publishes transit

Airlift's lane pages show transit as a range from the 10th to the 90th percentile (P10–P90) of its own shipment history on that port pair, not the carrier's best case. For example:

• Nhava Sheva to New York: 32–40 days
• Shanghai to Los Angeles: 12–22 days
• Ho Chi Minh City to Los Angeles: 28–34 days

These are planning ranges, not guaranteed durations; the current routing and sailing schedule decides the quote. Tables by port pair are on the India to USA, China to USA and Vietnam to USA lane pages and the shipping lanes index. The transit-time estimator looks up any pair in the same baseline.

How to plan with it

1. Work back from the required delivery date: subtract the destination leg, the P90 transit and the origin leg to get the booking date
2. Book against the cargo-ready date, not the vessel date, and confirm the document and CY cut-offs
3. Track the container so a slipped ETA shows up early, because demurrage free time starts at discharge, not at the planned arrival

Airlift's vessel schedule search shows sailing frequency and quoted transit by port pair, and container tracking updates the ETA as the vessel moves.