Copa Airlines will launch a nonstop flight between Denver and Panama City in December after United Airlines discontinued the route, but this time, Denver leaders believe they have the right airline to make the connection to the “hub of the Americas” work.
Fourteen months after United (NYSE: UAL) scaled back and then ended its direct flight to the capital city of the Central American nation, Panama City-based Copa (a united of Copa Holdings SA, NYSE: CPA) said today it will take up the mantle, offering service four days a week, beginning on Dec. 11.
Both DIA and Copa leaders are banking on Copa’s connections to 73 other cities in North, Central and South America as well as the Caribbean to make the flight a popular one both with tourists traveling in both directions and with Denver-area business leaders wanting quick connections to growing economies like those in Brazil and Colombia.
“It is the gateway to the rest of Latin America,” Copa regional commercial manager Fernando Fondevila said of Panama City's Tocumen International Airport, from which travelers do not have to go through customs a second time before flying onto other countries in this region. “Our new Denver flight will open doors to diverse business and tourism opportunities throughout the region.”
“Copa plays a significant role in the development of business and tourism throughout the Americas,” Copa Airlines CEO Pedro Heilbron said in a statement. “We expect the addition of Denver, our newest U.S. destination, to generate business and leisure travel not only between Colorado and Panama, but also to our more than 55 destinations throughout Latin America and the Caribbean.”
If the pitch sounds familiar, it should. United launched a daily nonstop from DIA to Panama City in December 2014, and Denver leaders touted it as the key to economic connections to Central and South America. But United scaled back to a seasonal flight just seven months later. And after three months of winter operations, it ended the route in February 2016.
Patrick Heck, DIA chief commercial officer, said this flight will be more successful for several reasons.
First, Copa’s regional connections are far more numerous than United’s were. And because it is a member of the Star Alliance, United fliers will accrue the same frequent-flier points that they can use to fly to more than 1,300 airports throughout the world.
Second, Copa has timed its flights to ensure that no one flying from Denver to another city beyond Panama must wait more than three hours to board the next flight.
The new flights will leave Denver at 10:30 p.m. on Mondays, Wednesday, Fridays and Saturdays, arriving in Panama City the next morning at 6:05 a.m. local time, Fondevila said. The return flight will leave Panama City on 11:50 a.m. on those same four days and land at DIA at 4:12 p.m.
United, as an American carrier, scheduled its flights so that people in Denver could connect quickly to other destinations and spent the bulk of its marketing efforts on the American audience, Heck said. This left many travelers feeling that the flight did not connect them to Latin America as efficiently as they’d hoped.
Denver Mayor Michael Hancock, who was on hand for today's announcement of the route, noted that he began pursuing Copa eight years ago, even before he spoke to United about the flight. He estimated the new flight will deliver an $26 million annual economic impact and create 244 new jobs.
And while two-thirds of the people traveling on the route are expected to be leisure visitors, he said there also are opportunities for Colorado-based manufacturing companies and agricultural interests to create new business in South America through the route.
“In order for this city, this region, to be globally competitive, it must be globally connected,” Hancock said.
Copa will operate the route on Boeing 737-800 airplanes that seat 16 people in business class and another 138 in the cabin, Fondevila added.
While just over 30 passengers a day fly between Denver and Panama currently, DIA officials said nearly 700 passengers each day fly to and from Central and South America destinations from the airport.
They said that current service to Panama City with one or more stops on the way takes two to three hours longer than Copa’s nonstop will.
