Panama Canal to lose another service due to consolidation

The alliance will deploy 8,500 teu-capacity vessels, which are too large for the canal, on two services, which cannot transit and will be redirected to the Suez Canal.

Starting 14 May, the services - AUE and AWE5 - will no longer transit the Panama Canal, said Panama Canal Authority vice president of market research and business development Oscar Bazan. In total, the Panama Canal has lost 104 transits per year due to the consolidation of several services in search of economies of scale.

However, APL will add a new service North-South from New York to Chile next month in association with Hyundai Merchant Marine and Mitsui OSK Lines.

ACP officials are confident that most of the services redirected via the Suez Canal will return once the future larger and longer locks will be inaugurated in early 2016, because the Panama waterway is more competitive than Suez as a vessel takes less days to travel between Asia and the United States East Coast.  

Meanwhile, the waterway has registered record dry bulk figures during the first quarter of fiscal year 2014 (October-December 2013), which prompted ACP officials to revise their forecast to 322.5m tonnes PC/UMS (Panama Canal/Universal Measurement System) tonnes in fiscal years 2014, up from 319.4m PC/UMS tonnes. This new forecast is higher than the 320m PC/UMS tonnes registered in FY 2013.