Terminal 2 opens Wednesday creating jobs and tourism

Terminal 2  of Tocumen International Airport, originally scheduled for delivery in 2017 will begin operations on Wednesday, June 22,  said Raffoul Arab, general manager of the Panamanian air terminal,

In the early morning of June 22, the operations of the airline Copa Airlines will be transferred, which will be the first to start operations in the new terminal. Subsequently, KLM, UNITED, and Air France will transfer their operations to the modern facilities of the new air terminal.

He specified that its opening will be possible, after a joint and team effort, despite the breaches that the company has had in contractual obligations. “Tocumen has made a great effort to start-up and put this terminal into operation, which will undoubtedly bring a lot of benefit to the country,” said Arab. The opening of Terminal 2 is expected to have an immediate impact on the generation of jobs in the country, in the tourism sector, the national economy and in the recovery of the country, after the difficult periods experienced by the covid-19 pandemic, nationally and globally.

But, in addition, as operations start-up and grow, Terminal 2 “will give added value to the country in that business cluster that is managed and operates around an airport as important as Tocumen’s.”

 Terminal 2 is a building with an avant-garde design that increases the capacity of the aeronautical complex. It has 20 boarding bridges and Terminal 1 (complete) has 33. It also has the capacity to operate or process an additional 10 million passengers and has a robust and efficient baggage handling system that will position Tocumen International Airport as one of the most modern in the region. The difference between the two terminals is that Terminal 1 handles 1,800 bags per hour, while Terminal 2 will handle up to 12,000 bags added that operations will start at T2 “in a very practical and operational way, but there are many aspects that are still missing for the terminal to be one hundred percent functional.”.

The contracting company CNO, SA began building Terminal 2 in 2013 and its delivery was expected in 2017, with an original contract of $917 million.