Due to the change of the Panamanian Government to extend the closure of the airport to Aug 22, Copa has extended their start up date to Sept. 4. https://www.copaair.com/en/web/us/coronavirus-updates

Kilgen wrote:

Due to the change of the Panamanian Government to extend the closure of the airport to Aug 22, Copa has extended their start up date to Sept. 4. https://www.copaair.com/en/web/us/coronavirus-updates

II have a feeling that even that date cannot be kept by the AAC and that they will extend yet again. On the other hand, Costa Rica confirmed that they're sticking to August 1st for the reopening to scheduled passenger traffic of SJO and LIR. It almost feels like Costa Rica has the virus better unter control than Panama, and I am the first one who criticises Costa Rica for its management of the virus.

I do wonder though how they're going to make flights to Europe work if Costa Rica isn't yet an authorised destination for the EU? I mean, if IB does come immediately after the reopening, how is it going to work. Am I free to travel that way to Europe? I'm a dual Costa Rican-German citizen, so I do not count as a resident of Costa Rica, I count as citizen, same if I were to fly to Spain because Germany is a fellow EU member thus I'm for them an EU citizen. So far, nothing has been said in detail or I just didn't pick up on it because I try to avoid the mainstream media as much as possible.

LTU932 wrote:

how they're going to make flights to Europe work if Costa Rica isn't yet an authorised destination for the EU? I mean, if IB does come immediately after the reopening, how is it going to work.

I've watched today's press conference on TV and authorities firmly confirmed the resumption of the international operations from both SJO and LIR on August 01st.
Only 5x weekly flights are expected from the very beginning from either United Kingdom, European Union [EU] or Canada.
Costa Rican citizens are banned for entering now into the EU and probably it will be for many weeks forward, given the huge amount of daily contagious for the time being. My interpretation is that IB MAD-SJO would be welcomed at SJO from August, but no one from Costa Rica is allowed to board the flight heading back to Spain. Bad deal for the airline.
Both IB MAD-SJO 3x and IB MAD-PTY 2x had asked for the chance of their flights since June, but it was before the hard restrictions hold by the EU in July, for those countries seriously affected by the spread of the virus, like all Central America.
On the other hand, both WK ZRH-SJO 1x and LH FRA-SJO 2x had previously announced the resumption of their flights to Costa Rica from August. They may start again here before Iberia.
These 5x weekly flights are solely representing the 5% of the demand prior to the pandemic. Reading between the lines, the airlines could be: Air Canada, Air Transat, Sunwing Airlines or WestJet. I still haven't read anything about BA LGW-SJO or BY LGW-LIR.
The main market from abroad is of course the United States, but all their airlines are out of this equation.
These are the rules for admitting foreign travelers: negative and certificated Covid-19 test with less than 48 hours before arriving, travel insurance for possible medical assistance, on-line health declaration as well as follow all the sanitary rules once at the airport.

Regards.

Edited on July 23th, 2020.

SJOtoLIR wrote:

Costa Rican citizens are banned for entering now into the EU and probably it will be for many weeks forward, given the huge amount of daily contagious for the time being. My interpretation is that IB MAD-SJO would be welcomed at SJO from August, but no one from Costa Rica is allowed to board the flight heading back to Spain. Bad deal for the airline.

What about dual-nationals? As a German citizen, I am also an EU citizen, so I'd have to use my German PNR to book the flight and probably show the immigration officer at SJO both my Costa Rican and German passport I guess (or at least the cédula and the German passport), and both ways? In Europe, I do know that I can only use my German papers anyway, because when I travel to Europe, I'm only a German citizen for the EU passport control people. I do not intend to flying back to the EU anytime soon, but I do wonder how us dual-nationals would have to handle things from here-on out.

LTU932 wrote:

SJOtoLIR wrote:

Costa Rican citizens are banned for entering now into the EU and probably it will be for many weeks forward, given the huge amount of daily contagious for the time being. My interpretation is that IB MAD-SJO would be welcomed at SJO from August, but no one from Costa Rica is allowed to board the flight heading back to Spain. Bad deal for the airline.

What about dual-nationals? As a German citizen, I am also an EU citizen, so I'd have to use my German PNR to book the flight and probably show the immigration officer at SJO both my Costa Rican and German passport I guess (or at least the cédula and the German passport), and both ways? In Europe, I do know that I can only use my German papers anyway, because when I travel to Europe, I'm only a German citizen for the EU passport control people. I do not intend to flying back to the EU anytime soon, but I do wonder how us dual-nationals would have to handle things from here-on out.

I am a German living as resident in Costa Rica - as per my understanding I am not allowed to leave the country as I would loose my residence. Sorry to say but what a poor managemnt of the goverement here, it makes no sense, why I am not allowed to leave to germany as German, but at the same time germans living not in Costa Rica are allowed to come...

Finally, Avianca Colombia is scheduling flights to Central America for September and pending Government approval, of course:

Bogota - Panama City.
Effective: September 01. 3x weekly, 320.
Effective: October 02. 5x weekly, 319.


Bogota - San Jose
Effective: September 02. 5x weekly, 319.
Effective: October 01. 7x weekly, 320.

No words yet about Avianca Central America, who is based at SAL.

Avianca wrote:

I am a German living as resident in Costa Rica - as per my understanding I am not allowed to leave the country as I would loose my residence. Sorry to say but what a poor managemnt of the goverement here, it makes no sense, why I am not allowed to leave to germany as German, but at the same time germans living not in Costa Rica are allowed to come...

I feel ya. In my opinion, there is a lot of mismanagement down here, and the government has only known confinement as a solution. Only positive: We don't have the same draconian measures Panama has, where your freedom of movement is limited I believe by day, by gender and by ID number, with a total confinement on Sundays. Don't know if the former is still applying, but I know they still have total confinement every Sunday.

With that being said, once commercial flights resume, residents may leave the country and still keep their immigration status (or so they say in the mainstream media):

https://www.nacion.com/el-pais/servicio ... um=twitter (In Spanish, Paywall)

I still wonder how us dual-nationals should handle it. The most prominent one in Costa Rica is Keylor Navas, and he has to use his Spanish passport to enter the EU. I'm German-Costa Rican, and unless the airline itself allows for entering the information for multiple IDs (which I believe only KL does), I'd probably need both my passports to enter and leave Costa Rica. Finally, on a personal note: I have to compliment the German Embassy in La Sabana for keeping things running. This year, my father had to wait six weeks for his passport but otherwise no significant delay. Also, at least for this year, they're helping him with sending his signed Lebensbescheinigung (a certificate to confirm you're still alive, due every year) since the postal service's reliability is sketchy at best according to them. For once, I can compliment a German government agency.

https://www.crhoy.com/nacionales/union- ... ar-vuelos/

Looks like travel in between Costa Rica and the EU may still not be possible despite whatever plans IB had in place for them. We're still left out. I guess the only option to reconnect to Europe is if BA decided to restart LGW-SJO, or maybe take advantage of the situation and even more their flight to LHR. But that's a pipe dream, LHR-SJO will never happen, that flight would stay in LGW. And even if these flights would be half empty, you could still use the flight for valuable belly cargo.

The Panamanian government has authorized on July 31 a limited opening at PTY:
https://twitter.com/tocumenaero/status/ ... 2405122048

It will allow passengers in transit (6 hours max between arrival and departure), departure out of Panama and only entry into Panama of citizens or residents (with the corresponding guidance of the Ministry of Health).

Another news that broke is that visitors to Costa Rica have to pay a 619 Dollar insurance policy to the INS, with that policy being compulsory for everyone except legal residents and citizens. How in the hell wants our country to get more visitors into the country after months of closed borders, when on top of high ticket prices (even with current lower demand) you have to pay over 600 Dollars on top of it. Visitors from the Schengen area and the UK in particular will be put off by this.

This will not help neither travel agencies, the airlines and their employees, and much less the economy. Over 600 Dollars, even if the stay is just two weeks, is way out of wack. And even I have my concerns because, if I was to travel to the US or Europe, how am I supposed to tell the airline that I'm also a Costa Rican citizen and therefore not subject to the insurance policy when most of the airlines don't allow two passports into a specific PNR?

Things should necessarily get better for entering in Costa Rica, taken into account the resumption of SJO for commercial flights on August 01st.
Finally, our regional airports start to work once again, after almost five months of none revenue operations, disregarding cargo and repatriation planes.
The mentioned medical insurance is being revised, given how expensive it actually is. That definitely doesn't boost travellers from abroad to come here.
Only five weekly flights are expected till August 08, representing less than 5% of the former supply, before March 2020.

Scheduled flights:
August 03: IB MAD-SJO.
August 05: LH FRA-SJO.
I have just quoted this info from today's local media.

I cannot understand for sure, how are these flights being programmed if the European Union banned their commercial operations heading to America, besides Uruguay ? My own explanation is that these flights would come with stranded Costa Rican residents and returning empty or loaded with Europeans exclusively.
I put some links on this board since May, about the chance of both IB and LH in Costa Rica again. They were asking desperately for it.
On the other hand, I haven't read nothing about either income flights at LIR or scheduled operations from Canada and the United Kingdom.

Source: La Nacion newspaper. August 01, 2020.

Kilgen wrote:

The Panamanian government has authorized on July 31 a limited opening at PTY

There are some points here:

1. If PTY was opened for in-transit passengers from July 31, this could mean operations through the main operator in Tocumen exclusively, but CM had initially quoted the resumption of their flights till September 04th.
   
2. We may see CM in the air again and earlier than September 04th.
   
3. The Panamanian airline would be gradually starting their flights again, taking into account the regular demand of passengers.
   
4. For the first stage, the following destinations by alphabetic order are the priority for the time being: CUN - CCS - DAV - GUA - GYE - GRU - HAV - LAX - LIM - MGA - MDE - MEX - MIA - JFK - UIO - PUJ - SJO - SAP - SCL - SDQ.

From my knowledge, only MGA, PTY and SJO are now opened regionally and considering very limited operations.
We must understand this process is extremely dynamic and things usually change without prior notice.

Regards.

Well, after the AAC of Panama gave the previous delay until August 22, CM moved its starting date to September 4 (10 days after the new starting date). Now that the Government announced on Friday that they will allow transit, exit and limited entry to Panama, maybe CM will change its starting date. We will have to wait for next week to see if CM will change its starting date or will wait until Sept 4th (as last time when the AAC announced the new delay on a Friday, it was until Sunday or Monday when CM changed its starting date, but then again, maybe they have already canceled all those reservations until Sept 4th).

I just checked some news, and CM announced today that they will start some limited flights on August:
https://www.noticierodigital.com/2020/0 ... de-panama/

En el marco de esta medida, Copa Airlines tiene programado inicialmente operar vuelos los días 14 y 15, 21 y 22 y 28 y 29 de agosto, a Miami y Nueva York en EE.UU.; México; San José, Costa Rica; La Habana, Cuba; Santo Domingo, República Dominicana; Quito y Guayaquil, en Ecuador; Sao Paulo, Brasil: y Santiago de Chile.

So they will do some flights to MIA, JKF, MEX, SJO, HAV, SDQ, UIO, GYE, GRU and SCL on Aug 14, 15, 21, 22, 28 and 29.

But looks like they still are trying to start on Sept 4th.

SJOtoLIR wrote:

I cannot understand for sure, how are these flights being programmed if the European Union banned their commercial operations heading to America, besides Uruguay ? My own explanation is that these flights would come with stranded Costa Rican residents and returning empty or loaded with Europeans exclusively.
I put some links on this board since May, about the chance of both IB and LH in Costa Rica again. They were asking desperately for it.
On the other hand, I haven't read nothing about either income flights at LIR or scheduled operations from Canada and the United Kingdom.

Since the UK is no longer in the EU, they can decide for themselves if they'll allow Costa Rica on the list or not unless they still follow the lead of some EU decisions post-Brexit. Either way, I also do not understand how IB wants to make flights to SJO work despite the EU ban. But apart from your hypothesis, I have another one that may be of importance: belly cargo. What if there's a loophole, where they could take advantage of the low capacity they're formally allowed to carry given the ban, while taking advantage and filling the belly to the brim with cargo, medical supplies, mail and trade goods.

We could use some improvement in terms of how mail makes it over here. We heard from an employee from the German Embassy that people have had problems receiving and sending their "Lebensbescheinigung" (a yearly certification that needs an official seal from a government office in/from Germany to confirm you're still alive in order to keep receiving your German pension) because of issues with the postal service. And my guess is because of how flights to major postal hubs like e.g. from FRA to MIA were suspended by the pandemic, this caused major delays. That was why, as an exception, the Embassy send his certificate for him back to Germany via diplomatic correspondence instead of the usual route of sending it as certified mail. The letter itself did arrive with a delay in the first place, but I think we just got lucky.

LTU932 wrote:

how IB wants to make flights to SJO work despite the EU ban.

Reading La Nacion - August 02nd, IB MAD-SJO will transport 250 passengers on August 03rd, being the first scheduled flight since the airport was opened again.
I guess the Airbus 350 would be still programmed as pointing out in June.
The belly cargo hypothesis makes no sense, given the amount of travelers on IB MAD-SJO. Practically, a fully packed plane !
Perhaps the eastbound flight would return to Spain loading a sizeable component of cargo.
Anyways, I will follow it carefully and ready to post further details.



Regards.

SJOtoLIR wrote:

I guess the Airbus 350 would be still programmed as pointing out in June.
The belly cargo hypothesis makes no sense, given the amount of travelers on IB MAD-SJO. Practically, a fully packed plane !
Perhaps the eastbound flight would return to Spain loading a sizeable component of cargo.

I'm surprised there will be so many people at once on the aircraft, given how the media and governments scream for social distancing, etc. However, given how hot it is right now, I don't know if a jam packed aircraft with decent cargo in the belly would work, given the issues with single-engine performance out of SJO when departing RW 07, and even KL having to regularly make fuel stops before making their flight a triangular flight via LIR.

SJOtoLIR wrote:

LTU932 wrote:

how IB wants to make flights to SJO work despite the EU ban.

Reading La Nacion - August 02nd, IB MAD-SJO will transport 250 passengers on August 03rd, being the first scheduled flight since the airport was opened again.
I guess the Airbus 350 would be still programmed as pointing out in June.
The belly cargo hypothesis makes no sense, given the amount of travelers on IB MAD-SJO. Practically, a fully packed plane !
Perhaps the eastbound flight would return to Spain loading a sizeable component of cargo.
Anyways, I will follow it carefully and ready to post further details.



Regards.

for sure the eastbound will be fully with fresh and juicy Tico Pineapple!

Avianca wrote:

for sure the eastbound will be fully with fresh and juicy Tico Pineapple!

I dunno. Usually that juicy and tasty Ananas is actually transported by sea.

LTU932 wrote:

Avianca wrote:

for sure the eastbound will be fully with fresh and juicy Tico Pineapple!

I dunno. Usually that juicy and tasty Ananas is actually transported by sea.

99% of the volumen, but some high end special pineapple are going via Air - the market moves per year aprox 7000 tons of these per year from CR to Europe and some small volumes to other markets in Asia and MidEast via Air.

According to ch-aviation, CM has sold all its E190, spare engines and spare parts to Australia's Alliance Airlines:
https://www.ch-aviation.com/portal/news ... o-19-e190s

[threeid][/threeid]

Kilgen wrote:

According to ch-aviation, CM has sold all its E190, spare engines and spare parts to Australia's Alliance Airlines:
https://www.ch-aviation.com/portal/news ... o-19-e190s

I wonder how many stops those CM E190 will need in order to fly to Australia (BNE?).

2travel2know2 wrote:

Kilgen wrote:

According to ch-aviation, CM has sold all its E190, spare engines and spare parts to Australia's Alliance Airlines:
https://www.ch-aviation.com/portal/news ... o-19-e190s

I wonder how many stops those CM E190 will need in order to fly to Australia (BNE?).

As it has to cross all the pacific, I wonder if it will do something like: PTY-IAH-SEA-ANC-PKC-SDJ-GUM-CNS-BNE
http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=PTY-IAH-SE ... UM-CNS-BNE

https://bit.ly/3k5C6RX

I hate posting Facebook links even if shortened and officially from DGME, but this interesting for foreigners on temporary work visas or green cards in Costa Rica:

*Para el caso de las personas extranjeras* que cuenten con Residencia Permanente, Residencia Temporal, Categorías Especiales o Estancia, podrán ingresar únicamente por vía aérea de los países autorizados por el Ministerio de Salud, y deberán presentar el formulario Pase de Salud, así como el documento de identificación migratorio para personas extranjeras vigente (DIMEX) y el comprobante de pago del aseguramiento al día a la Caja Costarricense del Seguro Social. Además, deberán acatar la orden sanitaria de aislamiento.
Quienes se encuentren en proceso de trámite migratorio no podrán ingresar al país a no ser que cumplan los requisitos de ingreso de una persona turista. Asimismo, la persona con categoría migratoria quien al salir del país se le impuso un impedimento de ingreso, no podrá entrar si no proviene desde países autorizados, con los requisitos indicados.

So basically, to retain your immigration status, you can only enter and exit the country via LIR or SJO. Those who have their immigration status being processed, can only re-enter the country as a tourist and from the currently authorised regions/countries (which are the Schengen area, the UK and Canada). With that being said, citizens and legal residents still have to quarantine upon arrival.

IB MAD-SJO just landed at SJO becoming the official first scheduled flight, since the airport was closed almost for five months.
They were welcomed by a water-cannon salute.

Date: August 03, 2020.
Flight number: IB 6317.
Equipment: Airbus 330-200.
Registration: EC-MNL.
Flight time: 09:59'
Passengers: 272.

https://www.crhoy.com/nacionales/asocia ... -viajeros/

IATA has officially stated its concerns about Costa Rica charging an excessive amount of money for the travel insurance policy they made compulsory and appears to be still a monopoly by INS, charging up to 1300+ Dollars depending on age.. They also didn't see the point in demanding COVID-tests even if the flight originated from one of the whitelisted places as of right now.

Air Canada in Central America:

September 09th: AC YYZ-PTY. 319. 3x weekly. Operated by Air Canada Rouge division.
September 12th: AC YYZ-SJO. 319. 1x weekly. Operated by Air Canada Rouge division.

BZE has extended its closure into Sept now. I just saw the notice.

Honduras will open their airports on August 10th purely for domestic flights.
Their international operations are being programmed for August 17th.

CM 2Q results were released today, with some interesting details, some highlights as follows;

During the month of July, the Company signed a contract for the sale of its 14 Embraer-190 aircraft, 6 spare
engines and spare parts. The decision to exit this fleet was made and announced in 2019, and these assets
were already booked as held for sale. Due to current market conditions, the agreed terms for the sale are
lower than originally assumed, which generates a book loss of US$50 million dollars on the transaction¨

thought this was announced before is a bit surprise they completed the transaction on this moment.

¨the Company announced its intention to sell its Boeing 737-700 fleet (14 aircraft), and does not expect to operate these
aircraft again, which resulted in a US$186.8 million, non-cash and non-recurring impairment charge for the
quarte¨

fukk details on the link; https://copa.gcs-web.com/financial-info ... ly-results

Guatemala has again delay to september 1 for openning the airports, maybe mid august for domestic operations.

Regards

CM has opened some flights in August, details;

https://destinationsguide.copaair.com/e ... mes5RF79Fs

My interpretation is that these flighs on Copa Airlines are having the stopover in Panama City.

Date: August 14th
Origin: Guayaquil. Leaves: 15.40
Destination: Miami. Arrives: 02.14+1

That means: CM GYE-PTY + CM PTY-MIA

The route map describes the flights operated by Copa Airlines in August.

PTY Tocumen Airport Twitter account (@tocumenaero) announced today it first connecting passengers in 4 months.
8 travellers flew from CM EZE to PTY and transferred to CM PTY-MIA after a quick stop-over.

Avianca wrote:

for sure the eastbound will be fully with fresh and juicy Tico Pineapple!

Local newspapers have actually mentioned the pineapple cargo on IB MAD-SJO heading to Europe.
IB MAD-SJO 2x weekly is switching passengers and cargo, in both ways.
Cargo has been properly transported among their empty seats. They didn't state about any belly load, in such flights.
Speaking about San Jose, LH FRA-SJO is also working and some isolated repatriation flights operated by UA IAH-SJO.
The US airlines are asking again and again for the resumption of their regular operations in Costa Rica.
B6 [JFK/FLL/MCO]-SJO might resume on September 01st.
American Airlines is planning some rescue flights from August 20th and scheduled ones from September 09th.
On August 10th, UA IAD-SAL flew to El Salvador as repatriation flight.

Regards.

AFAIK Florida has long peaked, so I can see at the very least MIA and FLL reopen for passenger flights to SJO soon. I dunno if MCO makes any sense, given that the DIsney parks have been doing quite bad. So I only see MIA and FLL resuming soon. Maybe, just maybe, we could see Texas resume scheduled flights to SJO via DFW and IAH. JFK and EWR are highly unlikely, especially since you have to quarantine of 14 days in New York and New Jersey. It's gotten so bad, that in NYC you have checkpoints set up, and can be punished with a fine of up to 10,000 Dollars if you break quarantine. So for tourist traffic both ways, I see only South Florida and maybe Texas as likely places to resume flights to SJO. The Northeastern United States should be ruled out for the time being because of the draconian measures in place which make tourism (domestic and from abroad) nearly impossible, particularly in NYC.

In regards to the US, I personally think we should get out of blacklisting the US as a whole and go to a system where flights to SJO and/or LIR are permitted to resume on a state by state basis. Same thing should be suggested to the EU in regards to the US.

SJOtoLIR wrote:

Avianca wrote:

for sure the eastbound will be fully with fresh and juicy Tico Pineapple!

Local newspapers have actually mentioned the pineapple cargo on IB MAD-SJO heading to Europe.
IB MAD-SJO 2x weekly is switching passengers and cargo, in both ways.
Cargo has been properly transported among their empty seats. They didn't state about any belly load, in such flights.
Speaking about San Jose, LH FRA-SJO is also working and some isolated repatriation flights operated by UA IAH-SJO.
The US airlines are asking again and again for the resumption of their regular operations in Costa Rica.
B6 [JFK/FLL/MCO]-SJO might resume on September 01st.
American Airlines is planning some rescue flights from August 20th and scheduled ones from September 09th.
On August 10th, UA IAD-SAL flew to El Salvador as repatriation flight.

Regards.

dont think that neither IB or LH is flying on the SJO route cargo on pax seats. but yes IB and LH is moving good loads on the eastbound in the belly, in regular times LH is moving only very limited cargo on the SJO-FRA run due to payload restrictions. but right now they can move between 5 to 7 tons.

Today PTY restarted operations: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1294343918939705345 and https://twitter.com/prensacom/status/12 ... 7014007808

18 Flights in total, close to 2000 passengers today.

CM reception in Guayaquil

https://twitter.com/PedroHeilbron/statu ... 4068540416

I'd save the source, but TV-news commented here about the water-cannon salute to welcome the first scheduled-flight, after almost 150 days of zero operations.
Someone told that it was rather forming part of the process of desinfection of such plane against the Covid-19. Just kidding ! Sorry, I had to...

Costa Rica to allow US tourists from September 01st and coming from those states where the Covid-19 disease is under control: New York, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine and Connecticut.
This will represent five flights per week and offering limited routes to both SJO and LIR. No info yet about which airlines and routes would be in service soon.
Private flights and yatches from the United States will be also allowed.

SJOtoLIR wrote:

Costa Rica to allow US tourists from September 01st and coming from those states where the Covid-19 disease is under control: New York, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine and Connecticut.

The government is allowing tourists from two states to come, where the death rate has been the highest???

LTU932 wrote:

The government is allowing tourists from two states to come, where the death rate has been the highest???

Not at this time.
New York and New Jersey were extremely hit by the coronavirus in March and April.
The US crisis is now basically focused in California, Florida and Texas, among the largest states in terms of their inhabitants.
Having said that, we may see UA EWR-SJO and UA EWR-LIR in September. American Airlines and jetBlue also supplied regular flights to Costa Rica from this geographical area.
Regards.

SJOtoLIR wrote:

LTU932 wrote:

The government is allowing tourists from two states to come, where the death rate has been the highest???

Not at this time.
New York and New Jersey were extremely hit by the coronavirus in March and April.
The US crisis is now basically focused in California, Florida and Texas, among the largest states in terms of their inhabitants.
Having said that, we may see UA EWR-SJO and UA EWR-LIR in September. American Airlines and jetBlue also supplied regular flights to Costa Rica from this geographical area.
Regards.

Honestly, they should've allowed MIA, PHX and DFW first. Reopening EWR at this time is somehow assinine. Even if they'd allow inbound tourists to EWR, especially New York City, you'd spend an entire two weeks under mandatory quarantine, pay a 10,000 Dollar fine if you tried to sneak away and get caught in one of NYC's COVID road checkpoints, and it will basically kill tourism into a city that also lives from it. And I have not heard that NYC would be reducing their requirements in case of a complete reopening of international flights. And those who are merely connecting in EWR but come from states that are on the NY/NJ list of states that must quarantine for 14 days will not wait 14 days just to catch their connections. This is going to backfire on SJO and LIR.

LTU932 wrote:

SJOtoLIR wrote:

LTU932 wrote:

The government is allowing tourists from two states to come, where the death rate has been the highest???

Not at this time.
New York and New Jersey were extremely hit by the coronavirus in March and April.
The US crisis is now basically focused in California, Florida and Texas, among the largest states in terms of their inhabitants.
Having said that, we may see UA EWR-SJO and UA EWR-LIR in September. American Airlines and jetBlue also supplied regular flights to Costa Rica from this geographical area.
Regards.

Honestly, they should've allowed MIA, PHX and DFW first. Reopening EWR at this time is somehow assinine. Even if they'd allow inbound tourists to EWR, especially New York City, you'd spend an entire two weeks under mandatory quarantine, pay a 10,000 Dollar fine if you tried to sneak away and get caught in one of NYC's COVID road checkpoints, and it will basically kill tourism into a city that also lives from it. And I have not heard that NYC would be reducing their requirements in case of a complete reopening of international flights. And those who are merely connecting in EWR but come from states that are on the NY/NJ list of states that must quarantine for 14 days will not wait 14 days just to catch their connections. This is going to backfire on SJO and LIR.

why would you open yourself up to the states that are currently having the highest case counts and blocking the states that have the lowest?

The following information speaks by itself related to the behavior of the virus, in selected US states.



The Government is also eyeing closely to Colorado, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, given how the disease looks like under control there.
The flow of passengers would be larger from the United States to Costa Rica than the opposite.
That makes a resemblace to IB MAD-SJO and LH FRA-SJO, because all the Central American travelers cannot enter in Europe now.

The Panamanian Government extended for 30 days all international flights. It does not affect passengers in transit, exiting the country or the arrival of citizens and residents, as decreed on July 31st. From Twitter:

https://twitter.com/tocumenaero/status/ ... 7329574913

it seems that Lufthansa has quite good loads on the FRA-SJO-FRA flights in the premium cabines, specially in business, the fares for September departures ex SJO are between 3800 USD and 4500 USD and ex FRA around 4500 EUR, and the loads are quite high. Eco seems to be a different storry - ex SJO to FRA and back for 500 USD and with medicore loads.

Guatemala will open La Aurora airport on September 18.

https://twitter.com/guatemala_dgac/stat ... 60608?s=20