Intersting Items From the Panama Canal's Annual Report

[BillB48]

A total of 242 cruise ships transited the Canal in FY 2019.  The Canal's FY runs from Oct. 1 to Sept 30 in the following year.

188 of these transits were full transits and 54 partial transits.



There were 14 less cruise ship transits this FY than in FY 18.



There were 12 transits using the new locks.



A decline of 12% in total passengers and a 10% decline in toll revenue from Cruise ships.



General Canal Info...



Total of 12,291 ocean going transits during the period.  20% of the transits were through the new locks, however the new locks accounted for 50% of the tolls collected.



Petroleum and petroleum products, followed by container cargo then grains are the top commodities shipped through the Canal.



Asia to East coast US, West Coast South America to Europe and West Coast US to Europe account for 90% of all container traffic.



Trade between  Asia and East Coast of the US account for 61% of total cargo through the Canal.



Another tidbit I found fascinating and really doesn't surprise me except I had never seen any official documentation of it.  First we have always have the question on Cruise Critic, "which locks will my ship use?"  The answer that is normally provided here is if it fits the Panamax Locks (original locks), that is the locks the it will use.  That still is the most accurate answer.  Many times when I have answered that question I have frequently prefaced my answer by pointing out that the original will be used unless there is some sort of anomaly that would necessitate a deviation.



In the Annual Report  reports there were 88 transits by Panamax vessels (vessels that fit the original locks) through the new locks for Canal "convenience".  Of these 88 transits 22 of the transits used the new locks exclusively, in other words used the new lock for the entire transit.  The remainder of the transits used a combination of Panamax Locks and Neo Locks,  For example Gatun and Cocoli  or Miraflores/Pedro Miguel and Agua Clara.

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[Manuela]

Thanks for the statistics, Bill. It's always interesting to see actual numbers.