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I have the following route below. Can someone tell me if 1.2 hours is enough for taking the connecting flight in Panama? This will be international to international (arriving from GRU and departing to NAS).

From my research, it seems this is a tiny airport with only 2 terminals and the videos online showed that it is virtually empty due to COVID. There will also be no checked in luggage...only luggage will be carry on.

Legend: CMB - Sri Lanka, DXB - Dubai, GRU - Brazil, PTY - Panama, NAS - Bahamas, FPO - Bahamas

             CMB      DXB      GRU      PTY      NAS      FPO
  03/26      02:55    05:55                                             Emirates
                      09:05    17:20                                    Emirates
  03/27                        01:30    06:24                           Copa
                                        07:48    11:42                  Copa
                                                 15:30    16:15         Bahamas Air
zwdev2
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1 Answers1

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1.2 hours is enough for taking the connecting flight in Panama?

Generally yes, you have very a good chance of making this. But it's not guaranteed: 1h 20 min isn't that much time and there is always a chance that your inbound flight is severely delayed, that there are paperwork hiccups or process changes, etc.

No connection is ever 100% safe, so it comes down to a risk assessment. Since this is all on a single ticket, a missed connection is typically not much of a problem: If you miss it (through no fault of your own) the airline will simply put you on the next available flight.

Here is, however, where the rub in your case is. The next available flight may only be a week later. The next Copa flight is on Apr 3 and all other connections that I checked route through the USA. The USA has no concept of transit, so you would need at least a transit Visa and meet all Covid requirements for entering the US. In fact there are only three airports that serve Freeport at the moment: Fort Lauderdale, Miami and Nassau.

So your chances of missing the connection are small, but if you do , the consequences are potentially difficult to deal with and it's hard to predict what would happen. Copa is legally required to help you, but there is a limit to what they can do even with the best of intentions.

Your best shot is to call up Emirates or Copa and ask them directly what would happen if you miss the connection. Once you know how this would play out, you can decide whether it's ok to take the risk or not.

Hilmar
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