Panama Tocumen Airport

✅ Trip Verified | There is not one restaurant. I walked the entire airport, including the 'food court' of the upstairs terminal 1. All of the food is tienda/'little stores' type places where you can buy pre-prepared sandwiches or empanadas. There's no place to sit and look at a menu and ask something to be prepared for you. About the most 'prepared' item you can ask for is a sub or some Ramen. It's incredibly depressing. A ton of duty free stores where you can buy junk but no restaurants. I got excited when I saw an upstairs with seats and tables in terminal 2 but it turns out its the Copa Airlines lounge (similar to an American Airlines or United lounge) where you have to be a member to enter. Also, the signage throughout the airport is pretty bad. Instead of fixing it they have airport employees stationed at escalators specifically to ask you where you're trying to go and tell you you're going the wrong way. Also, they have these bizarre metal posts in front of the escalators which makes navigating a rolling carry-on onto the escalators very difficult. I will add that they seem to have a decent number of restrooms, although the stalls can be difficult to get into with a carry on, and the cleanliness seems decent.

✅ Trip Verified | I was returning to NY from Santa Cruz, Bolivia. I have done this route many times before - since I go to visit family often. At Viru Viru airport Santa Cruz, Bolivia i went through 2 security check points without any issues. Everyone was relatively friendly and respectful. Now once I arrived in Panama I wandered to the lounge since my flight was delayed an hour and i fell asleep, i woke up frazzled and made my way to the gate. I had forgotten that they put you through another security check point prior to boarding the plane. Which makes no sense by the way, since all you do is walk from one gate to another, but anyway. I put my belongings and shoes on the scanner belt and as I approached the metal detector one of the officers comes up to me rudely says “what do you have under that jacket” i said it’s not a jacket its a sweatshirt and all i have is a bra cami. Another agent comes and says “you need to take it off and put it on the belt”. I said what??? I’m not taking my clothes off. I started walked towards the metal detector and was rushed by 3 officers screaming Stop you are acting very suspicious one of them got in my face saying either take off the jacket here or I’ll take you to do an extensive search and you’ll miss your flight. At that point I took a deep breath and removed my sweatshirt. Mind you i am a very conservative dresser, being in a bra cami for me was like being naked, I covered my chest with my hands and walked through the detector. As quickly as I could I put my sweatshirt, and shoes on and grabbed my stuff. I would of expected at least an “I’m sorry for the inconvenience but we need to make sure everything is in order” or something- but nothing. The treatment was completely humiliating. I had never experienced something like this in any country. I understand there are complicated international travel laws, but this dehumanizing treatment isn’t right. I truly wish I didn’t have to go through this airport again, but we don’t have many choices. A few years ago when we flew back with our kids, my daughter was drinking her juice and since we couldn’t take it through security i told her to finish it and the officers were again beyond rude with a little girl (one with special needs as well). They kept telling her to hurry up and making what already is a tense situation for us even worse. They absolutely need some sensitivity training and learn how to interact with people at this airport. Traveling is stressful for most of us, we don’t need these incompetent people making it worse.

✅ Trip Verified | Gate security staff confiscated my passport, threw it on a table in the open (everyone could access it) and then left it unattended. I asked to have it put in my bag to go through the security screen (2nd screening in 30 minutes) and was refused. Felt that their was no regard for the security of my documents. Staff were disrespectful and blasé. Also no toilets after going through the 2nd security screening. That is not acceptable. Overall the airport is not great but that is not a big deal. However the lack of security of documents and lack of basic facilities are extremely poor. Disgraceful.

✅ Trip Verified | I had a really bad time at this airport. My flight was delayed twice on the same day, so I went to get some food right in the area of my gate. When I came back downstairs from the food area, everyone waiting at my gate was gone!!! I was so scared that the flight came in and left. But after asking some people sitting around what happened, they said the people waiting for the same flight were moved to another gate, 108, all the way across the airport. But wait - an employee told me not to go way over there because they were still trying to get an updated status on the flight and I might go there only to have to come back. After more waiting, and ONLY after checking my email did I find out that the flight was canceled altogether! No one told me that. The poor souls were sent to an area that was closed off and had to come back over to get help. Delta handled the situation by providing us with an overnight hotel stay and a voucher for dinner, along with a bus ride to and from the hotel and back to the airport the next day. However, there were many rude employees at the airport who were no help at all. One employee had a dog surround me, and sniff me out along with my luggage while I was in a panic trying to figure out which way to leave the airport, go through immigration, Customs, etc. I was really lost as to which way to go and what to do because of a lack of help, direction and no good signage. Hardly anyone there spoke English. I understand the primary language is Spanish, but at an international airport, there should be more English speaking employees to help the many Americans that come back and forth there. Then we were rudely subjected to 2 security gate searches out of nowhere. There was no announcement, no warning. We had to get on a long line and be searched again! Everyone had to throw out their drinks they paid good money for, or should I say overpaid. This experience was my first experience in Panama City and I am very hesitant to return due to this poor treatment. I hear the country is really nice and this makes me sad. I was considering maybe trying to get a place there and at least go part-time, back and forth when I retire. But I don't want to have to go through this every time I want to travel. Needless to say, I agree with everyone else who posted on this forum.

✅ Trip Verified | Dreadful. No air conditioning, paid WiFi only, $7 coffee, disgusting food, rude employees. Other than that, absolutely fabulous. Needless to say wouldn't recommend. Hopefully, the new terminal will improve things but the old one is awful.

Not Verified | Everyone at this Airport is extremely rude and needs to be educated to do their Jobs better! And I am not sure if they really can‘t speak English of they just don’t want to because they are rude! Really really bad experience from beginning to end. We will try to avoid this Airport in the future for sure.

✅ Trip Verified | I thought that confiscated items were supposed to be disposed of in front of passengers. At security March 29, 2022, the security agent asked me how much my swiss army knife was worth, then walked away with my item without telling me anything about how it was being disposed of and whether or not there were any options for retrieval at a later time. Then the supervisor and another agent used verbal aggression and wouldn't say what would be done with my confiscated object which had disappeared by that point. The rudest security agents I've ever encountered. Also, it wasn't possible to check into my next flight and complete ArriveCAN with the 30 minutes of free wifi. Was left with a very poor impression of this airport.

✅ Trip Verified | Complete lack of mobile Charging Stations! Despite the fact Terminal 2 is newly built, there are no electric charging stations! There is one in the bathrooms. I did manage to locate a cluster of electrical outlets in an obscure corner of the food court above Terminal 1. The locations is Frankfurts at the far end. For the price of a beer I had the luxury of being able to sit at one if their tables to allow me to charge my phone. Lack of air conditioning in the food court! Trying to find Immigration to enter the country is poorly displayed I needed to find a new charging cord for my power back. They didn't have it. Just how many perfume outlets does this airport need??? Last but not least is their insane need to force people to go through security again when Departing the country! You are corralled in the gate seating area, unable to get more food or drink and especially unable to go to the bathrooms!!

✅ Trip Verified | Only read a few other reviews and they basically echo my own experience. Arrived the 4th of March with a Copa flight ex Santiago (Chile) - by the way, cannot speak for the US Copa flights, but the "Chile Copa" plane was fine, staff (of the plane) fine, boarding in Santiago = terrible (except if you're fluent in Spanish, not much in the way of English). I'm a little perplexed as to how Panama's Tocumen International Airport can charge such outrageous prices for food / drink, I mean, it's accepted that prices at an international airport are usually "steep", but this really takes the cake (no pun intended). I cannot complain about service - I bought a few things as take away and the chap behind the counter was efficient / professional. What does bother me is the lack of proper "notice / sign boards" and little to no announcements. Whenever something happened, it happened without any actual notice (a staff member suddenly calling out something and then having to follow others who hopefully are on the same flight), we suddenly had a "pre-boarding" check. The service agent was however a welcome change to the existing "non-announcement environment" and extremely helpful / competent. My pet peeve concerns the lack of actual FREE wifi. Yes, one gets an hour (as I recall). After that, you have to buy the service, pathetic. Do not advertise on your website there is free wifi when in fact it is 1 hour and sub-standard quality. Look at other international airports as an example. Suffice to say, given the option, I won't transit through there again.

Not Verified | Was stranded here after a delayed Copa Airlines (also horrible) flight caused me to miss my connection. They give you 30 minutes of free internet then you need to pay. Not ideal when you're suddenly stranded and need to create a whole new flight plan. Staff were mostly unhelpful. It's 2022 and the water fountains still aren't functioning. And for some reason I had to go through a Security check at the gate which took my water bottle (I drank all the water but apparently I'm not allowed to have an empty plastic water bottle). So now I'm at another airport without my water bottle and it's extremely annoying. Was transiting through Panama. Prior to this I had planned to one day visit Panama but after this experience I'll probably steer clear of both Copa and Tocumen.