Panama Canal will be allowing longer ships to transit the neo-panamax locks allowing 96.8% of the world's containership fleet to move through the waterway.

The Panama Canal Authority said in a statement that it has increased the maximum allowable length for vessels to 370.33 meters from 367.28 meters or three meters longer.

It said increasing the length overall (LOA) will give shipping lines more flexibility in planning deployment of vessels as well as the construction of ships with greater capacity that can transit through the Panama waterway — one of the world's busiest shipping routes handling about 5% of world trade and nearly 14,000 transits per year.

Panama Canal will be marking five years operations of its neo-panamax third set of locks which was inaugurated in 2016.

A series of earlier trial transits confirmed the safety of operations in increasing the LOA. This included the transit of Evergreen’s 369-meter-long Triton vessel in 2019 which became the largest vessel in dimension and container cargo capacity to transit the waterway since the launch of the neo-panamax locks.

Other ships with the same dimensions and container cargo capacity have also passed through the waterway, including Talos and Theseus, both with an LOA of 368.99 m.

The Panama Canal Authority also raised the neo-panamax locks draught to 15.24 meters, the highest level allowed at the waterway boosted increased rainfall and successful water management at the Gatun Lake that had kept the draught at 14.93 meters since April this year.