Air Panama appears to feel that COPA poses a considerable threat to their monopoly of the David to Panama route and they should be. The pricing of that flight has been too high and even with oil falling below $50 a barrel, we still pay and fuel charge on that route as well. Copa will offer a savings especially if you look at flights from the US that connect in Tocumen and arrive in David.
Air Panama has publicly questioned if Copa Airlines (CM, Panamá City Tocumen Int’l) should be allowed to compete with it on the biggest domestic market in Panama between Panamá City and David starting January 15. Air Panama currently operates from Albrook Airport to David up to four times daily with a mix of Fokker 100s and Fokker 50s. Copa plans to operate two daily EMB-190 services from its Panamá City Tocumen Int’l hub, its first domestic services in the country.
Air Panama executive president Eduardo Stagg has told local paper La Prensa that the regional carrier does not believe its much larger competitor complies with a national law requiring at least 60% of the shares in an airline to be owned by Panamanian nationals to be allowed to operate domestically.
Copa disagrees and says that it complies with all national laws and is allowed to operate the service. More than half of Panamanian local traffic is on the route to David, Air Panama’s most important in its network.
We have been coming to Panama, Bocas Del Toro, from Canada, for 7 years now, and look forward to Copa operating from Tocumen to David. We have property in Bocas Del Toro, and wish to retire there, but the costs and time taken to get here and back is excessive. The air Panama flights to and from Bocas is almost as expensive as the flight from Canada to Panama and back. When air Panama had Aero Purlas as completion, we were able to obtain a connecting flight to Bocas Del Toro on the same day. Since Aero Purlas went out of business, we have had to book a room in Panama City for a night to catch the early Air Panama flight to Bocas. Other than the cost, it now takes us two days to get to our destination.
Copa flying to David, would enable us to get to David, in one day, stay there for the night witch is preferable to staying in Panama City, and cheaper, do our shopping in the morning and catch transportation to Bocas. This will save us time, money and the frustration of staying in Panama City.
We have been waiting for another airline to start flying since Aero Purlas when out of business, and are pleased that Copa will be competing with Air Panama, as we have used Copa several times from Canada to Panama City and are pleased with their service.
Once Copa gets this route going, our hopes are that they might start flying into Bocas also.
I hope that more people will voice their opinion. Air Panama should not have a monopoly, their prices are too high, and the cost for the excess baggage (which we always have on the way into Panama, as we come for 4 to 6 weeks) are excessive.
It will be interesting to watch this unfold. We heard that Copa was flying this route, so we purchased tickets for our trip to Panama, beginning February 1st. I didn’t realize that they haven’t started flying this route yet, and hope that no problems crop up with the start. We looked at the cost comparing Air Panama (which we flew last year) and Copa, and for the same flights, we spent 321.00 instead of 532.00 for two people. That, and we don’t have to pay the cab fare between the main airport and Albrook. Hopefully competetion will bring the costs down to reasonable levels for all. We look forward to trying the service.
Estimado Thomas: Se ha hablado con mucha insistencia en cuanto a que los pasajes de Air Panamá a David, son caros, me acabo de meter en Expidia a ver el precio del tiquete en un vuelo Miami-Orlando cuya distancia es similar a un Panamá-David, y me cotiza $288 (American, United, US Airways, Silver Airways) como precio mas bajo (Excepto Spirit que anuncia $97.00 sin incluir maletas y otros cargos). En Costa Rica usted pagaría por un vuelo del 50% de la distancia de Panamá a David $272.00 en una avión mono motor sin presurización. En Colombia un vuelo entre Medellín y Bogotá pagaría entre $200 y $300 en Avianca (Medellín y Bogotá están a menos distancia que Panamá y David).
Para encontrar una tarifa mas baja tendría que ir a Nicaragua donde un vuelo Panamá-David le costaría $175. pero igual en Nicaragua hay otro costo de vida.
En cuanto a la clausula de combustible la misma obedece a la necesidad de contrarrestar las alzas incosteable del petróleo y responden a una tabla regulada por la AAC, si el petróleo sube el cargo por combustible sube, si el petróleo baja el cargo por combustible baja, el cargo por combustible en nuestro pasaje a bajado mas de $20 desde que el petróleo comenzó a bajar. Hoy un pasaje de Panamá-David cuesta $252.
Por primera vez desde que tengo memoria (y tengo 25 años de pertenecer a este mundo) la AAC ha permitido que se cobren diferentes tarifas en las rutas nacionales por lo cual nosotros estamos ofreciendo dos tarifas mas económicas en cierto número limitado de asientos.
Adicionalmente quisiera que se fijara cuando haga su conexión internacional para ver si en el pasaje nacional no le cobran recargo de combustible pero en el internacional si.
Espero que estas cortas líneas puedan comprobarle que los precios de los pasajes de esta empresa son competitivos y responden a los de la operación y el servicio que se brinda.
Para cualquier aclaración o ampliación de este tema estamos a sus ordenes.
Cordiales Saludos.
Eduardo Stagg