Panama Canal: Miraflores Locks maintenance & Booking System changes

Eda Zenic -

The Panama Canal Authority issued two advisories (A-39-2024 and A-40-2024) regarding scheduled maintenance at the Miraflores Locks and modifications to the Transit Reservation (Booking) System:

Maintenance Period (Nov 23-24, 2024):

  • The West Lane of the Miraflores Locks will be out of service for concrete maintenance from Nov 23 (00:01) to Nov 24 (23:59).
  • This results in reduced booking slots:
    • Booking Period 2: 5 slots for supers (none for regular vessels).
    • Booking Period 3: No slots for any vessels.
  • The total available slots: 13 for supers, 3 for regular vessels.
  • Restrictions on daylight transits will limit supers to 7 per direction (with a max of 2 daylight-restricted vessels) and regular vessels to 2 per direction (with 1 daylight-restricted).

Slot Distribution Table Correction (Advisory A-40-2024):

  • A correction was issued to the slot distribution for booking periods from Nov 23-24. The revised table now includes:
    • Neopanamax: 10 total slots.
    • Supers: 13 total slots.
    • Regulars: 3 total slots.
    • The "conditioned" slot for supers is included in the distribution.

Post-maintenance (after Nov 24, 2024), the normal slot allocation will be reinstated.