Panama Tocumen Airport

Not Verified | How do you explain that we cannot bring a bottle of water on the plane departing from Tocumen? I'm not talking about a bottle brought from outside, I'm talking about a bottle bought after going through security. It's the only place in the world where I've seen it. Because of this situation, I will never fly with Copa again. I will avoid Tocumen for the rest of my life.

✅ Trip Verified | Ughh, what a mess. Filthy airport - paid $25 USD for 2 coffees and a croissant. Best part of this airport was departing on time. Super bad customer service. Everyone looks absolutely miserable.

Not Verified | This place has many, many duty free stores selling the usual liquor and luxury goods, but not a single decent restaurant or bar. Restaurants are mall food court level or below. Hard to find even basics like cold diet sodas. Who is buying all this duty free? Mostly empty stores with a very bored employee. Air conditioning sucks, marginal at best. Terminal 2 has nothing in terms of food or bars, just a donut cart, and is also hot. Terminal 1 food court is hot. Dirty bathrooms. Really just gives the impression that Panama is one of those countries that you don't want to ever visit. If you have any appreciable layover in this place do yourself a favor and pay to get a pass at the COPA lounge. It at least has good A/C.

✅ Trip Verified | Worst airport ever! No air conditioning under a hot and humid weather, not enough seating at the gate, and as a cherry on top, the attitude from airline, stores, and service employees is rude. If you can, avoid it.

Not Verified | If you have staff in the international wing of the airport they should be bilingual and at the very least not laugh at passengers trying to do their best to communicate. Had several staff laugh as I was using google translate since they made no effort to try to explain what they mean. In addition due to a miscommunication with your staff about the one pager we have to sign upon arrival (we did this before we got to Panama via the us embassy website but apparently that doesn’t matter bc they didn’t ask for it) my friend and I got split and they wouldn’t allow me to wait not even two seconds for her to fill it out. My phone was dead and we ended up losing each other for a hour. Worst customer service I’ve received at an airport. I get this is your home but it’s no excuse to be rude.

✅ Trip Verified | Please, do not chose this airport as an alternative connection for your trip. This airport is small and most of the time the air conditioning does not work properly, it is hot most of the time. The food is terrible, similar to their customer service, and expensive. The airport only offers a terrible 30min free wifi every day, if you want more, you need to pay. And finally, the airport it’s been under construction since 2012 thanks to the Odebrecht construction company; therefore, don’t expect to see much in their new section of the airport.

Not Verified | This is the worst airport I've ever been. My girlfriend came from Colombia and I came from the US to meet for our vacation. The day before we both have a covid test done to help get through the airport quicker. Nope, not only did they force her to have another test they forced her to pay $85 for the stupid thing. Guess how long we had to wait at the airport while they are forcing people to take redundant tests and charging nearly a hundred dollars? We were forced to wait 8 hours. That's right, my travel time was already 12 hours long and I had to turn around and wait another 8 hours in this God for saying he'll hold. Never again am I visiting Panama.

✅ Trip Verified | Very bad experience. When you pick up your luggage from the conveyor belt and you want to get a cart they immediately want to charge you 5$. That's ridiculous. On every airport on the world you can get your cart for free. They could really do better in providing better service to their flight guests. Next thing is when you leave the airport the taxi drivers want to charge you 50 USD for a 20 min ride to the hotel when you can get it for like 5-10 USD in the other direction.

Not Verified | Arrival at customs - all officers playing games on their telephones. Huge slow queues. No assistance to any requests, they just stare blankly and say "Yes, coming" but then carry on playing with their mobile telephones. Elderly and diabetic requested some water and food repeatedly for one hour. Nothing ever arrived. Rude, disinterested. We will never visit Panama again and changed our arrangements and left the next day.

Not Verified | Probably worst experience. To start with immigration counters - everything extremely slow. And there was not too much people in queue. It is very scary to think how it is going when full house at home. No seats in check in area. Personnel unresponsive. No, they are responsive but do not doing promised. I had connection in Panama with 16 hours stopover, my luggage was set to final destination. Unfortunately my flight from Panama was cancelled and this “good” airport designated only one counter with two clerks to sort out people for this flight. Needless to say that all was going extremely slowly. Due to the nature of my business I had to catch another flight very soon. I’ve approached lady at the counter with simple question: do I need to receive my luggage first and after go to the next check in or luggage will follow seamlessly. Response was Yes. Knowing the nature of local clerks Asked two more times. Still Yes! Ok, then I contacted my travel agent and requested another flight ( I really could not wait till local guys will offer me substitute for my flight ). I received my ticket immediately and followed to next check in. On the next check in I am again asked whether my luggage will be forwarded to new destination and received same reply: Yes. Ok. After few more hours I am sitting in the plane and waiting for take off but suddenly assistant approached me and said that unfortunately my luggage could not be loaded to this flight so I have to leave the aircraft. I am missing another flight now. And this is not the end. Again I have to wait for immigration formalities and although I was promised that my luggage will be located soon another three hours passed away. Most funny is that airlines involved did not offered nothing as excuse. They were only pointing fingers at each other saying that this was their fault. As a result I missed important appointment, had to book hotel on my own spent 7 hours of my life for nothing in Panama airport. On a separate note: smokers beware. There is no place to smoke even outside of airport building! Ok, I understand that smoking not so good but we are as we are. And this is complete shame to put No Smoking signs all over approaches to airport and designate a policeman who chasing people. Guys we are also humans and if you would designate some special place for smokers this will not harm you in any case. Free wifi allowance is 30 mins only. You can imagine how much I’ve spent during my time in airport trying to sort out new tickets, appointments etc. As a wrap up: I never seen such miserable airport. I will always try to avoid it by any means.