This week, the Tocumen International Airport (PTY) inaugurated its new Terminal 2, where Copa Airlines expects to operate more than 280 daily flights and receive around 6,500 passengers per day. Let’s investigate further.
New Terminal 2
On Wednesday, Tocumen began processing passengers entering and leaving the country through Terminal 2. This new Terminal heavily increased the operational capacity of Panama’s central hub (also known as the ‘Hub of the Americas’). The airport now has 54 boarding gates and 12 remote aircraft parking positions.
Copa Airlines, the country’s flag carrier, became the first operator to offer flights from the new Terminal 2. It is expected to be followed by KLM, United Airlines, and Air France.
Flight 214 from Copa Airlines, arriving at 5:40 am from Guayaquil, Ecuador, became the first to come to Terminal 2. The passengers onboard were processed entirely in the new facilities.
The construction of the Terminal 2 began in 2013, and it was first expected to be finished in 2017 and have an overall cost of US$650 million. Nonetheless, due to unexpected delays, the terminal was inaugurated almost a decade later and had a cost of US$917 million.
Raffoul Arab, General Manager at Tocumen, said,
“Despite the contractor’s non-compliance, we have been able to move forward with the work that is the pride of the Panamanian people.”
He added that the new Terminal 2, additionally to its modern facilities, amenities, and air connectivity, “has the logistical efficiency and security to continue strengthening Panama’s competitiveness with a world-class airport infrastructure.”
Improving the passenger experience
The new Terminal 2 will improve the overall passenger experience of passengers flying through Tocumen. The Panamanian airport mainly serves as a connection hub; around four in every five travelers don’t have Panama as their final destination (Copa Airlines, for instance, has around 1,000 weekly flights from Tocumen to 72 destinations across the Americas.
The new Terminal 2 has 150 areas for stores and 50 for the food court in an area that exceeds 12,900 square meters. The Migration and Customs areas of Terminal 2 triple the installed capacity of the current Terminal 1.
In terms of access, the new airport will feature a subway station, which is still under construction, 1,426 parking spaces for cars, a tourist cab service, and more.
Overall, both Terminals will be able to move up to 12,000 bags per hour using a baggage handling system “with state-of-the-art security equipment that can detect whether baggage contains prohibited products or objects that could be dangerous.”
Overall, the new T2 has the capacity to handle up to ten million additional passengers annually.
Copa Airlines inaugurated the new Terminal with a flight that arrived from Guayaquil, Ecuador. Photo: Getty Images.
New airport capacity across the Americas
Over the last year, we have seen the inauguration of airports and new terminals across the Latin American region.
Honduras inaugurated its new Palmerola International Airport (XPL) to serve Tegucigalpa late last year. Chile opened the new Terminal 2 for international flights at Santiago de Chile International Airport (SCL). Mexico launched commercial services at the Felipe Ángeles International Airport (NLU), serving Mexico City.
About the opening of infrastructure across the Latin American region, José Ricardo Botelho, executive director of the Latin American and Caribbean Air Transport Association (ALTA for its name in Spanish), said,
“Despite the pandemic and uncertainty in many respects, we were sure that air travel would resume its growth path. Therefore, developing the infrastructure, which was already saturated in many markets, remains a priority and an urgent pending issue.
These long-term projects must project growing demand and not current demand.”
Panama, for example, launched operations this month in its second terminal, which will allow it to expand ground operations, which is excellent news, but we must work on air infrastructure, and air traffic control to really increase capacity.”