With the arrival of the rainy season and the progressive removal of the limits on the draft of ships introduced by more than a year due to the effects of lack of rainfall in the region, which has led to a sharp reduction in the of the volume of water in Gatún and Alhajuela lakes, the maritime traffic in the Panama Canal is also intensifying if it is still far from last year's levels when already transits were reduced due to the application of the saving water consumption. A few days before the celebration of the eighth anniversary of the inauguration of the works of widening of the Central American waterway with the transit of the COSCO Shipping Panama container ship through the locks of Agua Clara and Cocolí ( of 27 June 2016), the Panama Canal Authority announced the planning of new increases in the draft permitted of ships in transit that has been raised in the days ago to 47 feet and that will be raised to 48 feet from July 11 to climb to 35 feet from next August 5, date from which the quota of units that will be able to transit through the Neopanamax locks compared to 32-23 daily transits from 11 July and 34 transits from 22 July.

In the first five months of 2024, the channel was crossed by a total of 4,491 ships, of which 3,706 were high draught, with decreases of -27.4% and -30.4% on the same period of last year. These are reductions in transits that eased over the period January-May, being in the month of January 2024 alone, were decreases in the total transits of ships and those of high draught of -33.4% and -37.8% respectively on January 2023, declines that were progressively less significant at February (-26.9% and -33.5%), March (-31.6% and -32.9%), April (-24.6%) and -26.8%) and last May (-19.2% and -20.4%).

In the first five months of this year, the volume of goods transported by ships transiting the Panamanian Canal decreased by -37.0% to 76.4 million Tons. The revenues generated were also down from the transit rights of the ships which amounted to 1.23 billion dollars (-14.5%).