Panama Canal: Maintenance and temporary changes to transit booking at Miraflores Locks

Eda Zenic -

The Panama Canal Authority has issued advisory No. A-37-2024 regarding scheduled maintenance at the Miraflores Locks from October 26-28, 2024.

The West Lane will be out of service for 60 hours due to concrete maintenance. During this time, the number of transit slots available for supers and regular vessels will be reduced.

Booking Period 2 (during maintenance):

  • 5 slots will be available for supers.
  • No slots will be available for regular vessels.

Booking Period 3 (during maintenance):

  • No slots will be offered for either supers or regular vessels.

Total number of available slots (during maintenance):

  • 13 slots for supers.
  • 3 slots for regular vessels.

Applications for reserved transit slots while the maintenance is in effect will be accepted from October 12 to October 14, 2024, during the opening of the 2nd Period tiebreaker competition. These applications will apply to booking dates from October 26 to October 28, 2024.

One (1) JIT transit slot per direction will remain available for both supers and regular vessels transiting without restrictions during the maintenance period.

No more than seven (7) supers may be booked per direction, and only two (2) of these may have daylight restrictions per direction.

For regular vessels, no more than two (2) regular vessels may be booked per direction, with only one (1) vessel allowed per direction for transit with restrictions. This limits the total number of daylight-restricted vessels to four (4) across both directions.

Once the maintenance is completed, the usual availability of 20 slots for supers and 6 slots for regular vessels will be restored for booking dates beginning October 29, 2024.