Panama Canal Runs 10% Hot As Mexico's Tehuantepec Corridor Moves From Pilot To Live Alternative

The Panama Canal is having its strongest quarter since the drought, and its biggest long-term competitor has just proven it can move real cargo.

The Panama Canal Authority (ACP) told local press in late March that daily transits through the waterway have climbed to between 38 and 41 vessels, against a planned range of 34 to 36. Tonnage and revenue are running roughly 10% above the FY2026 budget, with January averaging 33.84 transits per day — essentially the upper bound of the canal's estimated sustainable throughput of 36 to 38 ships. For the full FY2025 that closed on 30 September 2025, ACP reported total revenues of B/.5.705 billion, about 14.4% above FY2024, and 489.1 million CP/SUAB tons, up 15.6% year over year. Energy has led the rebound: Asian refiners are rerouting medium-sour US Gulf crude parcels to Asia via Panama rather than around the Cape, paying a speed premium that the canal is happy to collect.

At the same time, the alternative everybody talks about but nobody had stress-tested under commercial conditions finally moved real boxes. Mexico's Interoceanic Corridor of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec (CIIT) completed its first major international logistics test in spring 2025, shuttling 900 Hyundai vehicles from the Pacific port of Salina Cruz to the Gulf port of Coatzacoalcos by rail in about nine hours per leg, with an end-to-end ocean-to-ocean benchmark of roughly 72 hours. The pilot, run by Hyundai Glovis, was small in volume but large in signal value. A 303-kilometer rail landbridge that bypasses the canal entirely, in a country with a free trade agreement with both the US and Korea, is no longer a slide in a Mexican government deck.

None of this makes Tehuantepec a Panama Canal substitute in volume terms. The canal moves about 5% of world maritime trade, and the Hyundai pilot equates to less than half a post-Panamax car carrier. But the economics that were theoretical a year ago are now empirical. Carriers and BCOs can point to a completed crossing, a published time, and a working customs handoff. For operators who were burned in 2023 when the canal cut slots from 36 to 22 at the height of the drought and spot booking auctions cleared north of $2 million for a single transit, the appeal of a parallel modality — even a small one — is obvious.

There is also a geopolitical layer the numbers do not show. The canal's recovery this year has been amplified by the Red Sea and, more recently, Strait of Hormuz disruptions that have pulled Atlantic-Pacific flow back onto the Panama route. That same tailwind makes diversification away from any single chokepoint the default posture of fleet risk committees in 2026. Drewry and Lloyd's List have both flagged the structural fragility of a trade system where three waterways — Suez, Hormuz, Panama — gate the majority of global movements.

What this means for operators: Panama is functionally back to capacity and will be priced accordingly through the dry season. Space on Neopanamax slots for Q3 should be booked or hedged now, not in June. At the same time, shippers moving finished vehicles, project cargo, or time-sensitive containerized goods between Asia and the US East Coast should run a serious Tehuantepec scenario in their 2027 route tenders — not because the corridor can replace Panama, but because having a second option priced in the book is the only defense left against the next time one of the world's three remaining maritime chokepoints closes.