It will reinstate the OC1 Service between the US East Coast and Australia and New Zealand on 10
May after the Panama
Canal Authority (ACP) added daily transit slots.
Maersk was forced to suspend use of the canal for the
service in January due to low water levels and reduced transits. It instead
split the service into an Atlantic and Pacific loop combined with a land-bridge
Panama Rail connection.
This set-up will be dropped and the service will
revert to its single former rotation, operating with 11 ships of between 3,100
TEUs and 3,800 TEUs, according to
Alphaliner.
Three additional slots were added for auction in
March, lifting the number of daily crossings from 24 to 27. Transits are still
well below the level before a drought at Lake Gatun forced the administration
to restrict ship traffic in November.
Transit
restrictions have not been as severe as originally planned, with liner solutions mitigating some of the impacts,
such as using the land bridge utilising the rail connection across Panama.
Every cloud has a silver lightning.