Maersk Line to Dump Panama Canal for Suez as Ships Get Bigger

Maersk Line, the world’s biggest container shipping company, will stop using the Panama Canal to transport goods from Asia to the U.S. East Coast as bigger ships help the company move them profitably through Suez Canal.

Maersk Line will send through Suez Canal a vessel that can carry as many as 9,000 20-foot boxes at a time, instead of using two 4,500-box-vessels through Panama Canal, Soeren Skou, chief executive officer, said in Singapore yesterday. The last sailing through Panama will be on April 7 and the first service through Suez will be a week later, the company said in an e-mail.