From Panama Canal to Suez Canal, the Challenges of Global Maritime Traffic on alternative routes

On June 26, 2016, the transit of the Cosco Shipping through the new Panama Canal locks marked the beginning of a revolution for global maritime trade.

Considered one of the most important engineering feats in the modern history of marine traffic, the new waterway—built by a consortium of European contractors led by the Webuild Group—is now in its tenth year of operation, having broken every record and brought job creation and economic benefits to the Central American country beyond the most optimistic expectations.

Since the day of its inauguration, over 27,000 Neo Panamax shipping boats have transited through the new Panama Canal, according to data from the Panama Canal Authority.

Over these ten years of operation, growth has been continuous, also thanks to design innovations that have enabled the new canal to reduce by 60% the freshwater required for naval traffic through the Panama Canal locks connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

This achievement is even more significant in light of climate change and the resulting reduction in water levels in the country. Between October 2024 and May 2025, the average daily number of Panama Canal transits increased by 30%, while tonnage increased by 22%. According to the Authority, these figures confirm “the delivery of a safe, efficient, and reliable service.”

From Panama, the message reverberated in Egypt, where the marine transportation challenge mainly revolves around security issues.

While Panama was celebrating the results of its first nine years, the Suez Canal resumed activities that had been suspended due to Houthi attacks on shipping boats entering the Red Sea.

On June 18, Osama Rabie, President of the Suez Canal Authority, announced the restoration of naval traffic with the passage of the Osiris container ship, owned by French shipping company CMA-CGM. The vessel, traveling from Singapore to Alexandria, was able to transit thanks to a truce in the Middle East conflict and commercial policies of the Canal Authority, which offered discounts to ships with a gross tonnage over 130,000 tons.

However, the truce lasted only a couple of weeks. Images of the attack on the Liberian ship Magic Seas by the Houthis once again raised the alert level for ships awaiting their turn to enter the canal, through which 12% of global maritime trade passes.

Due to the conflicts, Egypt lost $7 billion in Suez Canal revenues in 2024, according to a statement to Reuters by President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. Nevertheless, he expressed readiness to invest in a further expansion of this strategic infrastructure.

In 2015, the entire area underwent a massive renovation, with the dredging of new depths, the widening of lanes to accommodate new-generation ships—with capacities exceeding 24,000 containers—and, most importantly, the construction of a parallel canal at the northern end, near the Mediterranean outlet.

Last December, the construction of an additional 10 km of two-way channel of the Suez Canal was approved, increasing the total length from 72 to 82 km. With this latest extension, the isthmus of Suez—now measuring 193 km in total—can accommodate at least 6 to 8 more ships per day. The objective is clear: keep Suez Canal central to global trade flows. But security remains the most unstable variable.

Frequent terrorist attacks and rising operational and insurance costs have reignited the search for alternative maritime trade routes, pushing the maritime sector to imagine new, sometimes ambitious, solutions. The Suez Canal has so far allowed ships traveling from Asia to Europe to avoid the long journey around the African continent, passing south of the Cape of Good Hope.

Today, as an alternative to the Suez Canal, some companies are considering the Northern Sea Route (NSR), which runs along the Siberian coast through the Bering Strait. Although it is several days shorter than the Suez shortcut for a ship traveling from a northern Asian port to northern European ports like Rotterdam, this trade route is subject to severe climate uncertainties and passes through large frozen areas.

Another alternative maritime route, which has periodically resurfaced since the 1960s more for geopolitical reasons than for its feasibility, is the so-called Ben Gurion Canal, named after Israel’s first prime minister. On the map, the route is slightly longer than Suez, starting from the coast near Sharm El Sheikh toward the Gulf of Aqaba, then cutting through Israeli territory and ending at Ashkelon, not far from Gaza. However, at present, this remains a hypothesis weighed down by the unresolved issue of secure access to the Red Sea and the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict.