Panama City-based Copa Airlines has announced plans to expand its network to three additional cities - Asuncion, Paraguay; Cucuta, Colombia; and Chicago, Illinois, USA – from December. Details of the new routes were announced in the same week that the carrier inaugurated flights from Panama City’s Tocumen International Airport to Toronto, Canada; Porto Alegre and Brasilia, Brazil and Nassau, Bahamas and introduced additional weekly rotations to Bogota, Colombia; Lima, Peru; Miami, Florida, USA; Orlando, Florida, USA and Santiago, Chile. This growth will see the carrier expand from four to six banks of flights at the airport, providing passengers with greater flight options, better schedules and more frequencies and bolstering the facility’s position as the ‘Hub of the Americas'.
According to Copa, from Tocumen International it offers the most international flights and destinations within Latin America of any hub on the continent and expects to increase capacity by approximately 20 per cent during the calendar year. Over the next two years Copa will take delivery of an additional 23 aircraft and will serve 57 destinations in 28 countries by the end of 2011.
The first of its new routes is a four times weekly service to Asuncion, the capital and largest city of Paraguay and the economic and cultural center of the country. The city attracts business travelers and tourists for its port and its cultural attractions, while outbound passengers will be able to make convenient connections to Miami, Nueva York, Cancun, Havana, Guatemala, Aruba, Punta Cana and San Andres from Panama City. This new service, to be launched on December 15, will mean Copa will connect all the Spanish-speaking countries in Latin America.
On the same day Copa will introduce a daily link to Chicago O’Hare International, one of the key business and convention centers in the world, as well as a developing tourist destination. The third largest city in the US, Chicago will be Copa’s seventh US destination after Los Angeles, Miami International, New York, Orlando, San Juan and Washington. In the past year the airline has carried an estimated 879,000 O&D passengers between these cities and its wider Americas network.
On December 16 Copa will add a four times weekly service to Cucuta, Colombia. The border city located in the northeastern part of the country, is an important commercial hub between Panama, Venezuela and Colombia, and is home to the seventh largest airport (Camilo Dazo) in the country. Cucuta will be Copa's ninth Colombian destination, a market it serves more than 120 times weekly offering almost 14,000 seats.
Related Content
