On August 15th, the Panama Canal quietly passed a milestone most of the shipping world barely noticed: 112 years since the SS Ancon made the first official transit in 1914.
The Panama Canal Authority (ACP) recorded 10,623 deep-draft vessel transits in the first ten months of fiscal year 2026, up 6.1% on the same period last year, that’s 613 additional ships finding their way through the isthmus.
That rebound follows one of the roughest patches in the canal’s modern history. The 2023–24 drought forced the ACP to slash daily transits and impose severe draft restrictions, pushing up freighted costs and sending some carriers scrambling for alternatives via Suez or North American rail and truck corridors.
However, today the canal links 180 trade routes and roughly 1,920 ports across 170 countries, carrying cargo the ACP values at approximately $444 billion annually, or about 3% of global maritime trade.
📸 and reference gCaptain and Panama Canal Authority