Copa boosts the Panama hub to attract more tourism

Panama manages 31% of the air connections in all of Latin America and is committed to promoting tourism, which is why Copa hopes to attract more than 150 thousand tourists to Panama, as stated by Pedro Heilbron, CEO and executive president of Copa Airlines during the General Assembly. of the International Air Transport Association (IATA) in Dubai.

With the Stop Over program, the airline seeks to ensure that a large number of tourists take advantage of their time at the Tocumen airport to do tourism in Panama, either on their way or returning at no cost, Heilbron told the newspaper La Prensa.

Likewise, the executive stated that in June Copa will start three new routes that could be an opportunity for more travelers to visit Panama. The airline will inaugurate the route from Raleigh-Durham in North Carolina, United States, on June 21; Florianópolis, Brazil, on June 25; and Tulum, Mexico, on June 26.

Tocumen International Airport moved more than 17.82 million passengers in 2023, of which 12.83 million transferred or connected boarding and disembarking to other destinations.

As reported REPORTUR.co, Heilbron indicated that now the Latin American region has much more competition than before the pandemic, so they are forced to continue growing, to be more competitive and cost-efficient. (Cup: competition in Latam forces it to be more cost-efficient).

“There is a lot of competition in the region from many new and existing airlines. Competition is strong in Latin America, everyone develops their hub as much as possible and also many Flights that avoid hubs, that fly point to point and avoid connecting with Panama, Bogotá and other places. So we have more competition in the region than in the pre-pandemic, which forces us, one to continue growing and two to be more competitive and more cost-efficient every day,” Heilbron commented at the time, as reported by La Prensa.