Originally Posted by
mkilmo
but COPA does operate from PTY, with very good connections to the entire of central/south america.
Absolutely, feeding traffic into COPA and vice versa can indeed be very helpful in the course of determining which new destinations an airline could be flying to, but naturally this is only one of dozens of aspects that need (and will!) be taken into consideration.
Traffic rights, slots, cooperation agreements, anticipated yield, opportunity cost, availability of aircraft, seasonality, market type and size (O&D, connecting, leisure, business, ...), political stability, antitrust waivers, and probably another two dozen more that depend on the case at hand.
So just fumbling together some kind of amateur rationalization has little to no value, as the interested forum participant doesn't have access to the information that really makes or breaks it.