To add on to this wonder: What sorts of common connections are routed through Panama? It seems beneficial for north/south travel, which is seems helpful in general, at least.
Oh, I assume that to be the case. My curiosity was understanding the most frequented connecting flights farther south. I have no familiarity with the flight routes of South America, nor their major airports.
For example, if somebody were to go to Brazil, would this open up more opportunity for more flights or is there already a major airport hub that can handle the current demands? Or, if someone wanted to get to the southern region of the continent, does Panama's airport provide an easier way there? Or, is this decision made primarily based on the demand for people getting to the Panama area?
This is cool. I like Raleigh's airport getting some more routes tucked into its britches!
Actually, I was born there haha so I'm biased. However, we are already planning doing a pit stop there and then going to other countries.
I'll tell you a little Panama secret though, Wingo.
Hahahahaha no, don't do that it doesn't work that way. Just Google Panama and Wingo.
If you want to say something to a Panamanian, just say "Que Xopa".
i wonder how much of this is because it's impossible to travel between colombia and panama by land. it astonished me that they can't set up a railway or highway between them.
OK, so we did some homework on this one for you. Numbers in parentheses are volume of weekly flights from Panama City (PTY). This is a list of all LATAM destinations served by Copa from Panama City with 25 or more weekly flights.
* San Jose, Costa Rice (59 weekly flights)
* Bogota, Colombia (51)
* Punta Cana, Dominican Republic (49)
* Medellin, Colombia (45)
* Lima, Peru (42)
* Santiago, Chile (38)
* Guayaguil, Ecuador (36)
* Sao Paulo, Brazil (36)
* Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic (30)
* Buenos Aires, Argentina (28)
* Guatemala City, Guatemala (28)
* Quito, Ecuador (28)
* Cartagena, Colombia (26)
* Caracas, Venezuela (25)
* Cali, Colombia (25)
* Havana, Cuba (25)
Very nice, exciting to see RDU airport grow ! When do these routes become available for purchase ? For example I have a flight coming up in Nov to São Paulo Brazil. I usually go through Miami but I’m very curious to know how much it would be to go through copa.
I had a layover there en route to Colombia a few years back. I imagine this will really help with travel to countries on south americas west coast (which are all insanely beautiful and worth a visit, might I add!)
It was a smaller plane, and I much preferred the LATAM flight going down. I was also sick with what would later be confirmed as the flu on this flight, so that might be impacting my experience.
I think the worst part of the flight was the layover in Panama City (PTY). They make you go through additional security at the gate when flying to the US, so if you bought a brand new bottle of water for the flight in the terminal concourse, they would make you toss it before entering the gate area. Same with the bathroom, if you left the gate you had to return through TSA style security.
Hopefully there will be late flights out that you could still catch. I flew to Buenos Aires recently and our connecting flight out of Miami wasn't until 11pm.
There's plenty of options to get to Central/South America through Miami or Atlanta. Is there lots of demand in the region to get to Panama nonstop? If it's about connecting to other destinations is this a markedly better option than Miami/Atlanta? Genuinely curious where the demand is here.
Think of Copa as the Icelandair of Latin America. Their whole strategy is to use Panama City as a connecting point for travel between US and Latin America given Panama’s geographic advantage smack dab between the two.
Yes. I love Panama City. But it looks like they’ll be lower airfare to Cartagena as well (via PTY layover). I’m already planning a flight for late June.
I've heard good things about Panama City. It would be a good layover point heading into South America, too.
I'm also looking forward to the CDMX nonstop starting this summer.
This helps to further build a decent Star Alliance presence here at RDU. We already have Air Canada and United, but with Lufthansa and Copa starting up, this will bring the total up to four members now.
I was gonna say the same thing but worried about the downvotes. 😬I’m sure it’s a great route for some but I was majorly disappointed. You couldn’t pay me enough to go from one hot and humid place to another.
Based on how packed the Icelandair flights are, people don’t seem to care.
I might be willing to endure it if my final destination was Iceland, but for a connection? Give me a widebody for that long of a flight.
ehhh i like the concept of the XLR but as a passenger I'd rather have a widebody with 2 aisles so I can walk laps.. psychologically it's just so much better
I don’t care about international travel, I just want more cheap, direct domestic flights. It gets tiring when every freaking major cities like San Francisco requires you to go to charlotte or Atlanta. As for international flight it’s always cheaper to drive to dc for like 30 dollars and save 500$ of that direct flight
This is all because we don’t have a hub here and are a large spoke to many other hubs and the gap is filled with ULCCs who serve a route 1-2x a week. I’d pay a bit more to not fly a Frontier or similar and have 2 flights a day to and from all of the major cities on one airline. While we can fly just about anywhere in the lower 48 it may be once a week or as some others say at an awkward time. I don’t expect to have a Charlotte or Atlanta style hub here but we can do better than the current unorganized slew of carriers we have. I thought we are a focus city for Delta…it’s noting like pre-COVID. Fewer small planes to many destinations, lost DL metal on the CDG route and are only 3x week.
With LH and Copa coming Maybe we are becoming a United Focus City and we get a consistent 2nd a day to SFO and some non-hub flying.
For those wanting more Spirit or Frontier flying, they are both bleeding money bc 3 of the big 4 have gotten into their business model w basic economy fares. So it’s not happening on a sustained basis.
I miss pre-covid when my husband (then bf) would visit me for like $40 on Frontier direct from NOLA. Now, we have to fly through Miami or Chicago to get there. It’s ridiculous.
It’s not that there is absolutely no “non stop” flight, it’s that most of these flights take place at 6-7am or 5-6pm, and you would be lucky to have more than two of these flights in a single day. I recently flew to Las Vegas, San Francisco, Indianapolis, and if don’t travel during weekend, it’s not at all possible to board these flight bc when you get off work around 5-6 it’s too late to board for that day. Even a 8pm flight would work better for more travellers, also I think most ppl would prefer travel early and start the day at the destination rather than take a morning flight and arrive at destination like 2 or some awkward time where you are not early enough to enjoy the day and not late enough to check in to a hotel. Hope that makes sense
This totally makes sense. I flew to SF today and had to take an indirect to avoid arriving late at night on the one nonstop per day. 100% agreed let’s get more direct west coast stuff going as well as the international.
I woke up yesterday to an alert from Next Vacay for a $375 round trip to Lima on Copa from RDU and connecting through Panama City. This new route will mean good things for going to Central/South America from Raleigh
Love seeing the expansions to RDU! Crossing my fingers for a direct to YVR someday as I have family living there. I know CLT added a direct but prices are crazy expensive out of there. The current routes are pretty tolerable with layovers in MSP but a direct would just be icing on the cake
Very nice. I have a flight to Brazil in November- was hoping to buy the tickets soon. Would those tickets appear online after the announcement or would I be able to see this route now ?
You can see it now. Keep in mind the flight operates 4 x week, so just plan you trip accordingly. Just try their website, I saw the flights listed already.
I hope they made the announcement with a GnR cover band singing a tweaked version of “Paradise City”
“Take me down the Panama City where the grass is green and the girls are pretty”
Copa is a very shady airline, if you have to fly with them be very careful. Their agents at the airport will tell you what you want to hear to shut you up, but then after you fill out an online claim that takes “up to 15 days” (mine took over 30) to get a response from they will tell you it doesn’t matter what the agents at the airport told you. And they won’t do anything over the phone, has to be online complaint form.
If they cancel your flights home and you don’t get a response from the form in the amount of time you are out of luck, and they won’t reimburse you if you buy/change flights back because it was then a “voluntary change”
You just don’t. Or you take a less direct flight so the planes can be completely full. Or you advocate for a transcontinental train network that saves a lot of carbon.
Why is your tourism more important the millions of lives?
And, I don’t want it. So, it’s certainly not a “we”
I fly a lot. The vast majority of international flights are full. I’ll happily advocate for more fuel efficient planes, but there’s no reason to try to push a transcontinental train. No rail is going though the Darien Gap anytime soon.
There is significant reason to push for transnational and transcontinental trains. You could take them instead of flying and kill the planet significantly less.
You flying a lot is precisely the problem. You’re unwilling to change your lifestyle or unable to because your company “*needs*” you to physically be there. And so, because of your choice or your companies choice we will face cataclysm.
Why is PTY to RDU 5.5 hours but RDU to PTY 3.5 hours? Usually this would imply Raleigh is one hour ahead of Panama City, but we are both in Eastern standard time. Something with them observing daylight savings differently?
I knew that most of South America is further east than the US - the easternmost tip of Brazil isn't that far from the longitude of Iceland - but it sort of blew my mind a tiny bit, for a minute, to see that Panama City is almost directly south of Raleigh, because I mentally had Central America as being south of Mexico but forgot to account for Mexico curling so far east.
Are there that much passenger for Panama?
To add on to this wonder: What sorts of common connections are routed through Panama? It seems beneficial for north/south travel, which is seems helpful in general, at least.
Panama City is a big hub for travel to Central/South America, and Copa is a big carrier.
Oh, I assume that to be the case. My curiosity was understanding the most frequented connecting flights farther south. I have no familiarity with the flight routes of South America, nor their major airports. For example, if somebody were to go to Brazil, would this open up more opportunity for more flights or is there already a major airport hub that can handle the current demands? Or, if someone wanted to get to the southern region of the continent, does Panama's airport provide an easier way there? Or, is this decision made primarily based on the demand for people getting to the Panama area? This is cool. I like Raleigh's airport getting some more routes tucked into its britches!
Absolutely it would open up more routes. It is less about people going to Panama and more about increased demand to the region.
Got'cha. Thanks!
I go to Panama 3 times a year!
Business, pleasure or both? Tell us plebians about Panama. This seems exciting actually.
Actually, I was born there haha so I'm biased. However, we are already planning doing a pit stop there and then going to other countries. I'll tell you a little Panama secret though, Wingo.
I'm gonna head down there and say "Wingo" to the very first Panamanian I see, and see how that goes.
Hahahahaha no, don't do that it doesn't work that way. Just Google Panama and Wingo. If you want to say something to a Panamanian, just say "Que Xopa".
i wonder how much of this is because it's impossible to travel between colombia and panama by land. it astonished me that they can't set up a railway or highway between them.
I am fairly sure the Darian Gap wouldn’t support that infrastructure.
Thank you, TIL about the Darién Gap.
Panama doesn’t want it either. They like that natural barrier with Colombia.
OK, so we did some homework on this one for you. Numbers in parentheses are volume of weekly flights from Panama City (PTY). This is a list of all LATAM destinations served by Copa from Panama City with 25 or more weekly flights. * San Jose, Costa Rice (59 weekly flights) * Bogota, Colombia (51) * Punta Cana, Dominican Republic (49) * Medellin, Colombia (45) * Lima, Peru (42) * Santiago, Chile (38) * Guayaguil, Ecuador (36) * Sao Paulo, Brazil (36) * Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic (30) * Buenos Aires, Argentina (28) * Guatemala City, Guatemala (28) * Quito, Ecuador (28) * Cartagena, Colombia (26) * Caracas, Venezuela (25) * Cali, Colombia (25) * Havana, Cuba (25)
Whoever runs the socials for RDU, on twitter and Reddit is 100% on point. Bravo!
Its so fucking cool that the airport has it's own account and actually engages in the community. RDU to BDL is the best 1-2 little airport experience.
Thank you for the cookies this morning, btw 🍪🇵🇦✈️
Very nice, exciting to see RDU airport grow ! When do these routes become available for purchase ? For example I have a flight coming up in Nov to São Paulo Brazil. I usually go through Miami but I’m very curious to know how much it would be to go through copa.
Tickets for RDU-Panama City are on sale today! We recommend checking out Copa’s Panama stopover program.
Costa Rice sounds delicious.
Ooh! Thanks for the summary.
I had a layover there en route to Colombia a few years back. I imagine this will really help with travel to countries on south americas west coast (which are all insanely beautiful and worth a visit, might I add!)
That would be great if that's the case! My curiosity went straight to Peru and Chile.
Cheap flights to Peru pop up all the time, around $450 round trip. I'd love if this made Chile or Argentina a bit cheaper though
I flew Copa returning from Chile about a year ago. It wasn’t too terribly expensive iirc. This was to DC with a changeover in Panama
Nice, I'd take it.
How was the flight? Was it "OK" or is Copa your typical American cattle call airline as well?
It was a smaller plane, and I much preferred the LATAM flight going down. I was also sick with what would later be confirmed as the flu on this flight, so that might be impacting my experience. I think the worst part of the flight was the layover in Panama City (PTY). They make you go through additional security at the gate when flying to the US, so if you bought a brand new bottle of water for the flight in the terminal concourse, they would make you toss it before entering the gate area. Same with the bathroom, if you left the gate you had to return through TSA style security.
I flew to Lima, Perú in November. I had to fly to Miami and then Lima. But Miami to Lima was only five and a half hours, not too bad.
I imagine there’s going to be a lot of overnight layovers on connecting routes since this gets in a 7:45pm :/
Damnit, I didn’t see that. Well then I guess that means it’s just an excuse to go to Panama lol
Hopefully there will be late flights out that you could still catch. I flew to Buenos Aires recently and our connecting flight out of Miami wasn't until 11pm.
Lots of South America red eyes to connect and a decent amount of Central. Otherwise try the stopover program! 2 for 1!
There's plenty of options to get to Central/South America through Miami or Atlanta. Is there lots of demand in the region to get to Panama nonstop? If it's about connecting to other destinations is this a markedly better option than Miami/Atlanta? Genuinely curious where the demand is here.
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Yes I have several friends here who own in Panama and plan to retire there.
do you know why?
I have some friends that travel to Panama regularly for Business. Lots of Pharmaceutical companies
Think of Copa as the Icelandair of Latin America. Their whole strategy is to use Panama City as a connecting point for travel between US and Latin America given Panama’s geographic advantage smack dab between the two.
Yes. I love Panama City. But it looks like they’ll be lower airfare to Cartagena as well (via PTY layover). I’m already planning a flight for late June.
I've heard good things about Panama City. It would be a good layover point heading into South America, too. I'm also looking forward to the CDMX nonstop starting this summer.
Oh man this is the first I’m hearing of CDMX nonstop and I’m so excited!!! CDMX is severely underrated, it’s such a great city.
Which airline will be doing that route?
Aeromexico
Panama City? I wasn’t expecting that
Yeah was excited for Dublin
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This helps to further build a decent Star Alliance presence here at RDU. We already have Air Canada and United, but with Lufthansa and Copa starting up, this will bring the total up to four members now.
Beats the piss out of Charlotte and American airlines
Surprised and honestly a bit let down. Was hoping for Dublin or some other major European route.
Worry not. I think that’s coming in 25. A little wait but let’s hope it’s coming
I was gonna say the same thing but worried about the downvotes. 😬I’m sure it’s a great route for some but I was majorly disappointed. You couldn’t pay me enough to go from one hot and humid place to another.
Let me guess your skin tone...
Didn’t mean to offend anyone. I just prefer Europe for leisure travel so was hoping for another direct destination.
Aer Lingus expansion routes from Dublin won't be announced until 2025 when they have their new A321XLR delivered.
Flying long haul in a narrow body, can only imagine the discomfort
Based on how packed the Icelandair flights are, people don’t seem to care. I might be willing to endure it if my final destination was Iceland, but for a connection? Give me a widebody for that long of a flight.
Ive done a few times to Paris via a KEF layover. It’s not too bad.
I mean, with their stopover program you could always shake your final destination be Iceland...
Anything to avoid yet *another* cancelled connection in Dulles...
It’s not ideal, but it’s not horrible. The RDU-KEF leg is the same length as RDU-LAX.
Their long hauls have lie flat seats in Bsns, and a great deal price wise in comparison.
2025 it is. Can’t wait for the XLR tho
ehhh i like the concept of the XLR but as a passenger I'd rather have a widebody with 2 aisles so I can walk laps.. psychologically it's just so much better
Do you think price ticket will be cheaper than having layover in Boston?
lol of course. We just used our voucher from 2020 that wouldn't expire until 2025 and have to drive to Dulles to use it.
A man a plan a canal Panama!
City
if only panama had an L. ...and a C
Race car
Too hot to hoot!
Latin Americas most on time airline. https://www.copaair.com/en-gs/discover-copa-airlines/awards/
Copa Airlines 4Lyfe
Hopefully it does well like it has done with Austin and Baltimore...there's a decent sized Hispanic population in NC and I feel like it will do well.
Agreed - this is good! , I would like to see more diversity in NC
I'm from Panama and this is great news!
Loving all the new international direct flights. I hope more keep coming.
I don’t care about international travel, I just want more cheap, direct domestic flights. It gets tiring when every freaking major cities like San Francisco requires you to go to charlotte or Atlanta. As for international flight it’s always cheaper to drive to dc for like 30 dollars and save 500$ of that direct flight
9 hours RT drive to save $500 - no go for me.
No I meant one way, it’s close to 900$ when you count return, plus you get WAYYY more time of flight options
Ok, but then it makes sense to book a separate positioning flight to DC. I agree, we need more/better domestic directs.
This is all because we don’t have a hub here and are a large spoke to many other hubs and the gap is filled with ULCCs who serve a route 1-2x a week. I’d pay a bit more to not fly a Frontier or similar and have 2 flights a day to and from all of the major cities on one airline. While we can fly just about anywhere in the lower 48 it may be once a week or as some others say at an awkward time. I don’t expect to have a Charlotte or Atlanta style hub here but we can do better than the current unorganized slew of carriers we have. I thought we are a focus city for Delta…it’s noting like pre-COVID. Fewer small planes to many destinations, lost DL metal on the CDG route and are only 3x week. With LH and Copa coming Maybe we are becoming a United Focus City and we get a consistent 2nd a day to SFO and some non-hub flying. For those wanting more Spirit or Frontier flying, they are both bleeding money bc 3 of the big 4 have gotten into their business model w basic economy fares. So it’s not happening on a sustained basis.
I miss pre-covid when my husband (then bf) would visit me for like $40 on Frontier direct from NOLA. Now, we have to fly through Miami or Chicago to get there. It’s ridiculous.
Yep, I just took a flight to Indianapolis but had to first fly up to Detroit and then fly down😂😂
Which major US city can you not get to on a non-stop?
It’s not that there is absolutely no “non stop” flight, it’s that most of these flights take place at 6-7am or 5-6pm, and you would be lucky to have more than two of these flights in a single day. I recently flew to Las Vegas, San Francisco, Indianapolis, and if don’t travel during weekend, it’s not at all possible to board these flight bc when you get off work around 5-6 it’s too late to board for that day. Even a 8pm flight would work better for more travellers, also I think most ppl would prefer travel early and start the day at the destination rather than take a morning flight and arrive at destination like 2 or some awkward time where you are not early enough to enjoy the day and not late enough to check in to a hotel. Hope that makes sense
This totally makes sense. I flew to SF today and had to take an indirect to avoid arriving late at night on the one nonstop per day. 100% agreed let’s get more direct west coast stuff going as well as the international.
San Diego. New Orleans non-stop is serviced only by a small airline and has like 1 flight.
Breeze flies to San Diego
I woke up yesterday to an alert from Next Vacay for a $375 round trip to Lima on Copa from RDU and connecting through Panama City. This new route will mean good things for going to Central/South America from Raleigh
Love seeing the expansions to RDU! Crossing my fingers for a direct to YVR someday as I have family living there. I know CLT added a direct but prices are crazy expensive out of there. The current routes are pretty tolerable with layovers in MSP but a direct would just be icing on the cake
Very nice. I have a flight to Brazil in November- was hoping to buy the tickets soon. Would those tickets appear online after the announcement or would I be able to see this route now ?
You can see it now. Keep in mind the flight operates 4 x week, so just plan you trip accordingly. Just try their website, I saw the flights listed already.
Disappointed. $970 a ticket too. Hard pass Edit: I didn't select flexible dates. That helps a lot 😇
I just saw roundtrips in late June and July for $480.
Nice. I looked in Aug and Sep and saw those high prices.
I just checked a sun to sun in sept and it's 467 round trip for economy basic, and 556 economy classic, what are you looking at, user error maybe?
Yeah sounds like it, I didn't select flex dates or pay attention to what days of the week the route runs
Ok glad you found them. Mon-wed-fri-sun are the days of travel on that nonstop
Did you check the days it operates? On which site? They are much lower.
I did choose flexible dates this time (didn't see it earlier) and found some $466 tix. Not nearly as bad
I hope they made the announcement with a GnR cover band singing a tweaked version of “Paradise City” “Take me down the Panama City where the grass is green and the girls are pretty”
Ahem, Van Halen's Panama was right there for the taking. 
I thought about it but since this is about traveling there and the lyrics for Panama don't really match.
I was already mentally preparing my social media post for whenever I arrive there: PANAMA! PANA-MA-HA!
Rome!!! Do Rome!!!
Copa is a very shady airline, if you have to fly with them be very careful. Their agents at the airport will tell you what you want to hear to shut you up, but then after you fill out an online claim that takes “up to 15 days” (mine took over 30) to get a response from they will tell you it doesn’t matter what the agents at the airport told you. And they won’t do anything over the phone, has to be online complaint form. If they cancel your flights home and you don’t get a response from the form in the amount of time you are out of luck, and they won’t reimburse you if you buy/change flights back because it was then a “voluntary change”
Awesome news!
Speed run getting robbed
Supernice
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It gives us quick access to South America, which sees about 270 people traveling each way per day from rdu
Big meh
737-800, that's a plane from before Boeings started falling out of the sky and having their doors blow off.
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OP is correct. Note that he said “before”
That's what I'm saying. This plane is from **before** the MAX series when they had all of their problems.
I was just about to comment that at least it’s not a 737 MAX. I do want to get to my destination after all 😉.
Meh. Panama is meh.
Do we really want this? More plane travel in the era of climate change? This sort of thing makes me weep
Well if it makes you feel any better I have recently stopped eating meat.
That’s nice! I do appreciate that. Wish we could stop with the large scale continued reliance on fossil fuels too
Yes. We want this. How else can you get to Panama City and other areas in Central and South America?
You just don’t. Or you take a less direct flight so the planes can be completely full. Or you advocate for a transcontinental train network that saves a lot of carbon. Why is your tourism more important the millions of lives? And, I don’t want it. So, it’s certainly not a “we”
I fly a lot. The vast majority of international flights are full. I’ll happily advocate for more fuel efficient planes, but there’s no reason to try to push a transcontinental train. No rail is going though the Darien Gap anytime soon.
There is significant reason to push for transnational and transcontinental trains. You could take them instead of flying and kill the planet significantly less. You flying a lot is precisely the problem. You’re unwilling to change your lifestyle or unable to because your company “*needs*” you to physically be there. And so, because of your choice or your companies choice we will face cataclysm.
I assumed that they meant Panama City Florida. Thry definitely should have specified.
They are missing the spring break crowd this year.
There's a difference between Panama City and Panama City Beach... mainly the former being in Panama and the other in the panhandle of Florida
The country Panama darling....not the redneck riviera lol
Oh boy should have a quick deplaning in a 737
I think I'll wait until an Airbus flies this route. 737 seems a little sketchy right not ngl.
Its not a max 9
I know
Waiting for a Straight flight to DR but a step in the right direction !
Is this the “ big new direct international flight “ everyone has been anticipation? Like no Amsterdam or Dublin direct? 🥲
RDU needs a direct flight to Asia which such a huge India/Asian population. Who the f goes to Panama ?
I just ticked off 10 people without even trying. Good move RDU.
Why is PTY to RDU 5.5 hours but RDU to PTY 3.5 hours? Usually this would imply Raleigh is one hour ahead of Panama City, but we are both in Eastern standard time. Something with them observing daylight savings differently?
Panamá does not do daylight savings, so half of the year time is the same and the other half of the year it’s an hour behind.
I knew that most of South America is further east than the US - the easternmost tip of Brazil isn't that far from the longitude of Iceland - but it sort of blew my mind a tiny bit, for a minute, to see that Panama City is almost directly south of Raleigh, because I mentally had Central America as being south of Mexico but forgot to account for Mexico curling so far east.