The canal undergoes improvements often, being last widened in 2014 and it will be widened again the future. The latest incident helped spur the current widening, but it would have happened anyway. The issue is the canal is too narrow for the largest of modern ships, which are much more massive than what the canal was originaly designed for back in the 1850s, thus it has gone through widenings and other improvements to support modern shipping and this process will continue.

The obstruction was resolved in one week because of the spring high tide. Had this happened another time of the year, it could have taken much longer than a week to remove the obstruction.

https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/a359688...

A 'spring tide' refers to the high tide at the full moon or new moon and does not refer to high tide in the spring time. A spring tide happens when the sun, moon, and earth are in a line. It is to be contrasted with a 'neap tide' at the quarter moons when the sun, moon, and earth make a right angle.

https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/springtide.html

TIL. Thanks. So it's a phenomenon that occurs twice per month. That's not bad at all.

In fact, the average time you'd have to wait for it is... a week.

not something you'd want to rely on though - the obstruction could happen at high tide.

The canal has been continually widened over time. This may not be entirely reactionary.

The next one might be a lot harder to clear, and Egypt is completely fucked without the Suez Canal.

Not just Egypt. The rest of the world too.

The rest of the world can always go around the Cape. Egypt has no substitutes for the canal.

widening the canal has numerous benefits. Eyeballing it I think they chose this size so the current largest ships allowed (Suezmax) can pass each other with the additional width, allowing for 2-way traffic.

The accident is probably just a nice catalyst or PR move.

It feels like an admission that the ships are too big for the current canal. You can read elsewhere about some ugly hydrodynamics of vessels that size if they get close to a canal wall.

Here's an expert whose discussion is very interesting

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZ14E289jvw

Also, the canal generates critical foreign dollars for Egypt. They're probably slightly panicked about the proposed Israeli canal, particularly as transit companies are (one would assume!) much more open to alternatives.