Which Saturday? Pope is coming to Panama and place is a disaster for next ~2 weeks

People work saturdays here, and finish between 12-1pm, so traffic is not great at all then. If you arrive into PTY at 6am and are departing at midday, I would stay in the airport

Sundays are generally ok

A Saturday in June, just before the total eclipse.

What are people's thoughts on renting a car to drive to the canal area? Advantages of renting a car are that I can stash carry-on bags in the trunk instead of lugging them with me wherever I go; advantages of Uber are no time overhead for picking up/dropping off a car.

I believe it would be the 5th Saturday of the month.

Have rented from the airport Enterprise location on several occasions in the past. It is reasonably quick to pick up and return, nothing out of the ordinary time wise. The only issues with driving are the potholes, finding parking if you are in the city and the traffic. Make sure to have them mark all the damage on the car when you pick it up so you have no issues returning it.

My one bad experience driving in Panama: car in front of me slammed on their brakes to pick someone up standing on the side of the road, I stopped short, guy behind me rear ended me (no injuries, the bumper cover did pop off slightly though), I get out of the car to see damage, the guy who hit me pulls up beside me curses me out and drove off. Was able to pop bumper back in place and the bumper was in such a mess when I picked up the car that they didn't even notice the damage when I returned it (blessing in disguise I guess). This also happened within the first few hours of picking up the car which I had for 2 weeks. Again that was my only incident and again I've rented for long periods of time and on many occasions.

If you are only going to the canal I would say just take uber so you don't have to deal with it.

Definitely, do not drive in Panama. Especially if you are not absolutely 100% fluent in Spanish, as in speaking it as a native.

The driving itself is madness and if you are unlucky and have a collision, even just a minor one, you can be sure the other part will try and have you blamed in any thinkable way, regardless of reality. You need to know handling procedures to perfection and be able to formulate them in fluent Spanish, while possibly dealing with aggressive even violent behavior from the counterpart.

I lived 3 years in PTY and thank God never had to deal with anything unpleasant, but the stories of how non Spanish speaking foreigners (including foreign residents) were bullied in traffic are countless.

And the Panamanians gladly fight each other over traffic accidents.

It makes the Nicaraguans seem tame by comparison. I have a driver in Managua and he's said if we have an accident casually stroll to the curb while he waits for transit police and insurance and then slowly get out of there to a mall or whatever so they don't see a gringo was in the vehicle even if I wasn't driving and it's not my car.

I just booked a flight LAX-PTY-LIR in November, and we'll have about 4hrs 20min layover in PTY on a Sunday morning (8:11am - 12:30pm). Is that enough time to visit the Canal/Miraflores Locks on our layover?

Short answer: NO.

I agree that it's unfeasible. But... it's fun to consider the concept given that it's a Sunday morning, the only time to really try such a trek.

What if......
1) first class pax, and carefree vacation travelers.
2) close arrivals gate
3) early arrival from LAX (flightaware shows the last two Sunday arrivals at 7:30 a.m. and 8:33 a.m.) Let's say 8 a.m.
4) 15 min to clear immigration and customs (I've done this before, but I have no opinion on crowds at that hour). 8:15
5) PTY to Miraflores Visitor's center, google maps predicts 30-45 min. I'd say 30 min. 8:45
6) 1.5 hours at the locks (not sure if it's open, and be careful of the holidays 3-5 & 10 Nov). 10:15
7) Back to PTY, assume 45 minutes. Can't take Cinta Costera, closed on Sundays for bikes. 11:00 a.m.
8) Immigration and security on a Sunday morning. 30 minutes is very safe, and first class pax can use the Gold Lane. 11:30
9) 10 minutes walk to gate for LIR flight. 11:40

Doubtful that Copa will be boarding a 12:30 flight at that time. Their boarding passes always say an hour, but it's usually 30 minutes or so. If you're in first class, maybe you're not worried about overhead space and could board later.

Of course, the above is perfect timing, and you could hit a snafu with any of these projections above. But you could just take the next flight out, right? Which is at ..... oh, Thursday. Nevermind!

2) They are all close arrival gates but they sometimes use remote gates and a bus.
And they will board an hour before departure time. Copa often leaves before the departure time to keep their 90+% OTP.

Change to a later flight to LIR and improve the odds. Or do it on the return with a longer connection or stay a day extra.

Great information on this post. I am thinking of booking CM for the very first time on points for business so have a few questions; planned route is EZE - PTY - YYZ
1) how's CM's business class? worth spending the points? I see it is not a POD style seat so already a negative
2) I can choose between 1.5 hr vs 8 hr layover. 1.5 hr seems enough based on comments here as I do not have to clear immigration nor pick up luggage. But what about track record of on time (it is out of EZE so not much faith there) factoring in the need to clear gate security even for YYZ
3) Is the COPA lounge still under construction and hence not worth the 8 hr layover? Can I visit the canal if I take that route?

Thanks in advance

1) Some EZE flights have the new MAX9 with POD style lie-flat seats. These are easily identifiable with a MAX9 logo when choosing flights. Other flights might (should) have the 737-800 Version B, with better lounger seat and longer seat pitch, this is trickier to determine, only through evaluating the proposed seat map, and may change. CM coach still provides alcoholic beverages and a meal (2 on EZE flights I think).
3) The Copa lounge is long finished. Bigger, but still pretty uninspiring and certainly not worth planning for. An 8 hour layover permits a canal visit depending on avoiding rush hour.

Both topics are covered in several threads on this forum and in the Central America forum.

They hold YYZ if long haul inbound are late, I mean not forever, but they held it once 90 minutes when I was in PTY for a late flight in from Buenos Aires. They do not want 20+ people stranded in PTY for missing a once daily flight to Toronto. That said Copa has about a 92% OTP record and they shade the arrival times (hence the 92%) so I would not waste 8 hours on this contingency. 1 1/2 hours is boring enough. The lounge is as crowded as a bus station as well which does not add to the ambience.

If you are in the (short and fast) queue for the YYZ gates they are not shutting the door on you, clearly. And J gets to go ahead of Y.

I have no idea why they persist on this silly behaviour, other than to parrot the USA. It's fun to watch them chit chat with each other, you, anyone, while stuff goes through the x-ray with nobody looking at the screen. Computer out? Shoes off? Nah, don't bother.

SJO does nothing of the sort for AV or WS flights to Toronto (nor does HKG though they still segregate USA flights) so it's not all airports nor both countries, all the time.

And MGA has stopped with the segregated gates to MIA though they do "randomly" inspect people at the jetway, "randomly" being defined as people dumb enough to shove to the front to be first in boarding in J. I let 3 people take one for the team then never get stopped, so quite a foolproof system. SAL still does but it is amazing to watch them handle 500+ people at 7 a.m. in about 15 minutes. Like a Ford assembly line. I doubt it is all that thorough either.

Not to worry in PTY other than the gate areas post inspection are on the small side. Central America - the hobgoblin of inconsistency with this security theatre.

Slightly OT, but I surmise that SAL and PTY are different because they allow incoming passengers from all flights to enter directly to the terminal and "mix" with freshly-screened passengers. As such, passengers screened in all far-flung places with possibly lax procedures now become PTY's responsibility if they aren't rescreeened at the gate. I am glad that CM's contractors are lenient; UA's are not.

Thanks everyone. 1.5 layover it is, as it turns out to be the COPA 737-900, so I do get a bed! I'll be row 1 or 2, so unless major screw up at EZE I should be ok.

As previously mentioned, Copa do change out planes. In November, we booked to fly on the 900 from FLL-PTY for the 25th March. This was later changed (sometime end of Dec / start of Jan) to the newer of the 800s. Its only a 2.5 hour flight, so nothing like it being changed on an EZE leg - hopefully all works out for you

Might get some tips from this review of the 900 business class:

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/30539431-post28.html

On seatguru it shows row 1 as being green/better than all others, is this actually true across the fleet or is it standard SG pumping up the front row? thank you.

Well I went to Panama City on June 29. Drove from the airport to the canal area, and then to the San Felipe area. Background on me and several comments about Panama City:

1. I hardly EVER make wrong turns. Back when I was in college, my friends gave me a tongue-in-cheek award that they called the "human Mapquest award".
2. The most wrong turns I have ever made in a short period of time, up until June 29, 2019, was 5 over 3 days, in the Boston/Cambridge area, due to crappy signage.
3. In Panama City, I made SEVEN, yes, count them, SEVEN wrong turns in about THREE HOURS of driving. TWO of these wrong turns were literally on gore points that had screwed me over before.

I mean, seriously. You have your routes (route 1, route 3, etc) and you have the cardinal directions. PUT THAT STUFF ON THE SIGNS. I mean, on Route 1 at 8.961576, -79.536398, they've got one ramp marked "Ave. Eloy Alfaro/Ave. 3 De Novembre" and the other marked "Ave Los Martires/Ave Omar Torrijos". I mean, ...?!? ONE of these routes *is* the Pan-American Highway (Route 1), and the ramp that keeps you on the highway is not only NOT marked as such, but appears to be an exit ramp AND the exit lanes aren't even marked at any point with elephant tracks (boxes that mark lanes that exit from lanes that do not) before the split AND there is additionally NO overhead sign that tells you which way you are supposed to go to get to which roads (see below for example). And it's not just this place, it's like this all over the damn city. Interchanges aren't marked except at the last moment, and no overhead signs tell you which lane you have to be in to go where, AND the directions on the signs that do exist suck. I call for the public execution of the complete moron who designed the highway system in Panama City, and the appointment of someone from a civilized country like Chile or the United States to run the Department of Transportation to clean up the mess that he made.

Does the ramp to the left (which I missed the first time, by the way) look like it keeps you on the main highway in any way, shape or form?

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...7db860e31d.jpg

Avoid driving a car in panama imo

At least they have street names. Managua has almost none and no numeric addresses even if there is a street name. Mail is literally sent using landmarks and in lieu of the compass directions North, East and West they use al lago (towards the lake), arriba (sun coming up) and bajo (sun going down). And for less than blocks they use varas (an ancient version of more or less a yard equal to 33 1/3").

So a birthday card I once sent successfully delivered was addressed like Señorita X, Barrio Villa Venezuela, from the Lopez hardware store, two blocks towards where the sun rises, two blocks towards the lake, 30 almost yards towards where the sun sets, blue house with a metal door . Delivered in 5 days. I was lucky they lived so close to that well-known hardware store.

And some of the most popular landmarks are gone so instead of from the Lopez hardware store you might say from where the Coca-cola plant used to be. And go from there. As tourists would have difficulty with finding landmarks that are at least there, they're doomed with ones that were torn down 20 years ago. So all in all Panama City seems lux with signs and street names.

Also there are signs in both Managua and San Jose say no virar en U (no U-turn) using the nautical term for "to tack" (not 100% wrong especially if you are a sailor) vs. the Spanish more familiar word girar (to turn).

Yes, road signage is terrible. If one insists on driving, smartphone map apps have become surprisingly good around here. The pronunciations are entertaining, but the instructions are accurate.

In over a decade in Panama, I have never heard a Panamanian refer to a cardinal direction, nor to any numbered route. These concepts simply do not exist in anyone's mind. All directions are offered with local names and references to landmarks, present or past.

notahighway
 

The Panamerican Highway may be marked on some map as such, but that is for the convenience of the cartographer - there is no 'highway' through Panama City, although traffic is improving somewhat. As such, there is no legal authority to make signage indicating Ruta 1, etc. If you are going to follow signs, it makes sense that you would learn the names of the streets upon which you are driving. While parts of Calle 50 look like a highway (more than three lanes), it's a busy urban street and nothing more.

Unless you are on Corridor Norte or Corridor Sur, you're not on a highway.

Good luck executing the moron - they are probably long dead. Much of Panama City was laid out in the early days (pre-WW2) with the assistance of none other than the US Army Corps of Engineers. .Everything after that was added using what was available.

Asking anyone locally would likely result in the opinion that you should have hired a driver if you are unwilling to suffer through the (very steep) learning curve of driving in Panama. The other side of the experience is that you would have a skill level much above the average motorist, as Panamanians drive like they are inside an eTournament video game of Grand Theft Auto.

Okay then, I should be allowed to dig up his body, pee on it, then dump it into the basement of the Chernobyl reactor or have SpaceX launch it into the Sun. And I also call for public execution of the morons who continue to allow the signage to be this bad to this day. Just because it was bad in the past, doesn't excuse it being this bad to this day. Signage is pretty cheap compared to changing road configurations and can be done in a few months. All they'd have to do is put some indications of which way you go to get to common tourist locations (Aeropuerto Internacional de Tocumen, Canal de Panama, etc) and some route numbers, and put signs indicating which lane you need to be in about 100-200m before the exit/gore point. It's not that hard.

I didn't have a problem with the way other people were driving. I've driven in many countries, including Mexico and China. But the signage is way better in every other place I've driven.

Most streets in Panama City only got names after the Pope visited earlier this year. Before that they were "72nd street" or "51st street" with a few exceptions. And each "corrigimiento" (neighborhood) had its own count so you'd have multiple Calle 40's throughout Panama City. A real mess. And as mentioned above, no one ever uses the street names anyway as it all goes by landmarks, present and past. I have a friend in Via España who still lives "by the old brewery" when asked.
And yes, signage is horrible and the city at first seems like a total mess to drive in. It took me about a month to figure out how it was put together and after that it was actually surprisingly simple. Often I would plan out my route in the head before taking on the streets. It has its fair share of one way streets, even the bigger transit roads, so at times you feel you are driving in circles to get to your destinations.

After a year in my native Copenhagen - biking city par excellence and very civilized car traffic - I weirdly enough begin to miss the chaos in PTY...

Luggage not checked through in PTY COPA-UN
 

I purchased my COPA flights and United flights separately so they will not check my luggage all the way through PTY. What is clearing luggage like in PTY? I have a 2 hour layover. Will this be enough time? Do I need to clear customs and then get luggage to recheck it to the United flight? Any info would be amazing. Thank you.

Maybe policies have changed, but I thought it was, or used to be, possible to through-check bags in such situations, since Copa and United are partners. But if you can't, this will be a tight but doable connection, unless you land at the same time as multiple other planes and immigration gets backed up.

If you do need to get your bag(s), you'll clear immigration, then customs, and then just take the elevator upstairs to United's counter.

Where are you going from PTY? You'll need to be mindful of United's checked-baggage deadline, which is 60 minutes before the flight's departure. After that, they likely won't let you check in for the flight and you'll need to change to a later flight.

EDIT: One other thing: If you get upstairs and there are lines at United's counters and the 60-minute deadline is fast approaching, try going to one of the priority or business class lines and explain that you just arrived on a Copa flight.

Post your exact itin

So, the xfer is from a CM flight to a UA flight. The exact itinerary would be helpful.

But UA has 3 flights to IAH and 1 daily to EWR, right? So the OP is either catching a 9:30-ish flight to EWR or IAH, or a later (12:41, 15:30) flight to IAH. Only the morning flights present any sort of rush at all. The afternoon UA flights are smooth as silk. Unless it's a very early flight on CM into PTY, I think the 2 hour layover is no problem whatsoever, even if the pax has to schlep the luggage out of customs, upstairs to the UA counter, and back through security. Of course it would be better if CM checks it all the way through.

UA will close up shop at the check-in counters upstairs at T-60, so your trip may go haywire if the CM inbound is late.

I have seen plenty of UA-CM bags (and vice versa) on the carousels. I would be fairly confident that CM will through-check your bags, even on separate tickets, although I have never done it myself. I would trust the counter agents vs. a phone agent.

I reversed this in my now-corrected comment above. Booking a Copa flight to connect to United in PTY is kind of interesting, since PTY-IAH (or PTY-IAH-XXX) and PTY-EWR (or PTY-EWR-XXX) tend to be much more expensive on United than similar routes from, e.g., Costa Rica. I'm curious about the exact itinerary here.

Guys I need to get to David. My incoming CM flight from LAX (10pm departure) arrives at 6:32 am. (J Class)

Id like to get on CM17 to David that departs at 7:31 am, is it doable? What is the process? Any tips?

I'd like to avoid if possible the 4pm flight cause that would be a 9+ hour wait.

the PTY-DAV tickets haven't been purchased yet, and I know it seems that MCT in PTY is longer than 59min, since I cant pull up these flights together on GDS.

Wow, DAV is getting popular. The CM website will sell that itinerary, but CM 17 is shown at 7:37 in my dummy booking. I'd say the only way it's doable is without checked luggage and to have on-line check-in for the DAV flight before leaving LAX.

Otherwise, you might need to taxi to PAC for Air Panama.

Look for the previous post in this thread for details on the international-domestic procedure.

As Yadi said, I don't like your chances on that one. If the incoming flight is early, you might be able to make it if you don't have checked bags.

So doing a Galapagos cruise in Dec and am looking to book flights to avoid red eyes and flying business class. I'm 1K on United so was looking at GYE-SFO for our return. Times are GYE 3:05 pm to PTY 5:14 pm. PTY 6:11 pm to SFO 11;08 pm so connection is 57 minutes. Not sure if we clear customs in PTY and if that is enough time to transit. I don't normally like such close connection times. And how is business class on Copa? Thanks

No need to clear customs. Just make sure that your bag is checked all the way through. 57 minutes should be fine. There will be another security check at the gate for your SFO flight, so don’t delay getting to it. As a J passenger you can skip the line

Hopefully the MAX will be back by then!!

Thanks for the feedback. That makes my decision so much easier!

Terminal Map
 

Here's the famous map from the seat-back magazine that other readers have correctly pointed out is nowhere to be found on the Copa or Tocumen websites.

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...a2b821cbc6.jpg

No experience flying COPA here. Looking at a return flight MDE-PTY-DEN with a 1-hour layover in PTY. From what I read they have extra screening for US-bound flights at the gate. Is a 1-hour connection enought time for a flight to the US? We would be in J, so I think that allows us to go to the front of the security queue at the gate. Can anyone confirm this?

Thanks so much.