While we are excited to see the expansion underway here in David to handle direct flight to the US, the new International Airport in Rio Hato will provide a boost to the growing tourism market as it will be served by many all inclusive resorts nearby.

The new  international airport for Panama’s central provinces is about an hour and a half from Panama City.

Although Aguadulce, Anton, Penonome, Santiago and Chitre all wanted the airport, President Martinelli confirmed that the selection of Rio Hato is definite.

“We are going to invest in the construction of an international airport in Howard, in the central provinces in Rio Hato and improve the structures of the Enrique Malek [airport] in David,” Martinelli said, adding that Santiago’s airport would be expanded and a smaller airport built in Santa Catalina. We see in Rio Hato all the basic requirements for operations of planes of all types under any conditions of weather that we may expect. Its potentiality for expansion into a very large field is such that I consider it indispensable to the contemplated Air Corps expansion program in this Department.

Rio Hato, in Coclé,  near to the Pacific beaches has been chosen as the site for the construction of an international airport to serve the interior. Other locations in the running were Aguadulce, Antón, Penonome, Santiago and Chitré.

As a sweetener to protesters in Santiago, which claims the airport should have been sited their because of the region’s economic development, the government plans to spend a “significant amount of money” to upgrade the Ruben Cantu Airport.

The airport in Rio Hato will also be served by the construction of a tunnel from the Trans Panama highway all intended to give greater access to the Pacific beach areas to help boost tourism.