The launch of Baltimore means that Copa now serves 17 destinations in the US and Canada.
The announcement that Baltimore is joining Copa Airlines’ network brings to its 17 routes from Panama City to the US (15) and Canada (two). Never has its US/Canada network been so extensive. Baltimore will launch about a year and a half after Atlanta.
Welcome, Baltimore!
Readers may be somewhat surprised by the addition of Baltimore. Yet analyzing booking data for 2019 shows that an estimated 208,000 people flew between Baltimore and Central America and South America in 2019. Put another way, the market had 285 passengers daily each way, although obviously certain months had higher demand than others. Around 138,000 were to/from Central America, and the remaining ~70,000 were further south.
Not all can or will be targeted by Copa. To work out the size of the potential market, I’ve examined all possible connections using OAG data in the week that Baltimore began. Based on flying no more than 50% further than a non-stop would be and waiting no more than four hours (it’s often 90 minutes or less with Copa) – not necessarily on every day – shows that it’ll target the 20 markets shown in the map below.
Image: GCMap.
A market of ~106,000 for Copas
According to booking data, the 20 markets had ~106,000 passengers in 2019. They include San Jose, Lima, Bogotá, Buenos Aires, and Santiago, the top five markets. Of course, it would gain only a proportion of the ~106,000, influenced by its connection times, product quality, pricing, and so on relative to competitors.
Click here for Baltimore-Buenos Aires flights.
Note that the above passengers exclude those leaked to Washington Dulles from Baltimore’s core catchment. It’s realistic to assume that the Copa will gain some of these, perhaps especially given the often-congested drive to Dulles, increasing the potential pool.
Photo: Copa Airlines.
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On June 28th, the Copa will launch a Monday, Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday Panama City-Baltimore service. It’ll use 154-seat 737-800s. Spread over a year and when the load factor is considered, this suggests that it hopes to gain about half of the previously identified market.
Given the nature of Copa’s hub structure, it’ll leave for Maryland five minutes earlier than one of its flights to Dulles. Baltimore is scheduled as follows, with all times local:
in the week beginning June 28th, Copa has an average of 29 daily flights to the USA/Canada. (This includes Puerto Rico, considered as the US.) A breakdown of its 17-strong network is as follows. Hardly surprisingly, Miami, Orlando, and JFK account for about half of the flights:
Photo: Vincenzo Pace | Simple Flying.
In the past 20 years, the Copa has only ended one US/Canada route: New Orleans. Launched in June 2015, it was mainly four weekly. It initially used the 737-700 before switching to the Embraer 190 and back again to the Boeing, although the larger 737-800 appeared occasionally. Copa has since withdrawn the E190 and 737-700.
In 2019, the US DOT confirmed that Panama City-New Orleans had a seat load factor of just 62.2% on both legs. According to booking data, approximately 40,000 passengers transited over Copa’s hub, especially to/from the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Brazil, Venezuela, and Costa Rica.
What do you make of it all? Let us know in the comments.