Panama Canal backlog of ships waiting

Panama Canal backlog of ships waiting    The Panama Canal Authority faced a backlog of 55 vessels waiting to transit the Canal Wednesday, but predicted it would improve the situation.
   The backlog is due to a lane outage and a 15-percent increase in traffic, the authority said. “Vessels waiting to transit the canal should return to normal levels — below 40 — this weekend,” it added.
   On June 8, the canal authority reported that one of its lanes was closed to replace the locomotive tow tracks at its Atlantic locks. The lane is now back in operation.
   These lane outages are scheduled to take place once every month, for a maximum of 11 days for each outage, from June until October, the authority said.