Panama’s New Airport Terminal: What benefits brings to the country?

Panama is a small Country in Latin America, but it is an important aviation and connecting hub, and the main hub for Copa Airlines, which take the advantage of the of the country’s position between the two continents.

Tocumen International Airport was originally founded in 1947, however as time passed, Panama started to become an important transit area for connecting flights, and the first terminal became to small to take care of the growing demand, this was the first time the authorities considered expanding the airport, and a new expansion project started on 1971.

The current terminal 1 was built in 1978 and during the years, it has been growing as a connecting terminal for many flights both from USA and Latin America. In 2006 Tocumen implemented an expansion program, where new boarding gates were built to allow even more flights coming and going from Panama. Along with the expansion, renovation works also came in with new equipment and modern boarding gates and elevators.

The airport had a second phase of the expansion and renovation which sets the airport now with a total of 40 gates, a new set of facilities, a new luggage sorting system and many other improvements, which both increases efficiency in servicing the growing demand and also improved their commercial capabilities. Then 2012 came in, and a new plan for a second terminal was presented, with 20 additional gates, hundreds of parking spots, modern equipment and a new construction design, the ambitious project that was presented with an investment close to $800 million was inaugurated in April 2019.

The annual traffic, since the beginning of the 2000s has aggressive growth rates, where in some of the previous year have reached up to 19%, this has allowed Panama to keep consolidating his position as a global hub and to keep working towards growing their capacity and improving their efficiencies to attend the growing demand. The plan is to increase its traffic from 16 million of passengers per year to 25 million or even more in the next 6 years.

The main benefit the country expect from the new airport expansion is, of course, more tourism. Bringing more visitors and tourists to Panama will keep increasing the local commerce, jobs and income generation, besides more opportunities for bringing foreign investment.

On the other hand, working as a connecting hub, it is increasing the traffic by bringing connecting passengers from new markets, as a result of new airlines setting up operations. The more connectivity a country provides, more opportunities come for the country to hosts new multinational companies, international events, business meetings, summits and so on, this will lead for more employment generation and more economic and social development for the country.

Panama has an enormous potential to keep growing by being a regional logistics center, that can now connect Latin America with countries in Europe, Middle East and Asia, and they are for sure preparing for this by improving and modernizing their current infrastructure.