Panama Tocumen Airport

✅ Trip Verified | In order to fund its expansion, the airport appears to have sold all its chairs, meaning that there is nowhere for passengers to sit. While there is a vip lounge, this is almost as squalid as the rest of the airport, with large groups of people hovering around, in search of an empty seat. Outside the airline lounge, it is worse, with multiple security checkpoints (each with bag and magnetic scanners). Passengers squat on their haunches outside boarded up duty free stores, counting the floor tiles. Exhausted childrens’ screams echo down the travellators. The bathrooms are worse still. Even the mens’ restroom has a line; these are less than clean. On a plus, the air conditioning is working, currently.

✅ Trip Verified | Wow — just wow. Until today I thought that LaGuardia held the record for worst airport facilities in the world. Panama takes the crown. One tiny, horribly overcrowded lounge for the Copa Hub. No decent sit down restaurant. Crowded corridors and very small, poorly serviced rest rooms. Ridiculously pricey fast food options only. A mess of secondary screening which makes for crowded chaos. Copa deserves a better hub and ASAP!

✅ Trip Verified | Worst airport ever! Airline and shop staff are really rude! Unnecesary security checks and filthy restrooms. I'd rather avoid this airport! Food is far too expensive (above 30 USD for a sandwich, a salad and two drinks). There are not a lot of options to choose from, anyway. No vegetarian food in so-called "healthy" bars. And everything is chaos! People everywhere going who knows where and no staff to keep the order. I'm not happy at all! Shops like duty free only accept cash (no credit or debit cards). Who would think an international airport these days takes only cash?

✅ Trip Verified | Panama Tocumen is a good place to connect between the U.S. and Latin American destinations: the gates are never far apart, there are interesting eating and drinking options, and it is not necessary to go through immigration or customs. The airport can be really crowded, however, and the security process before boarding U.S.-bound flights can be a pain. The lines can get long and slow, yet there is little seating at the gate itself, and no toilet facilities. It's time for a major redo if Copa Airlines (the main carrier) intends to expand.

✅ Trip Verified | What a terrible place. I had to do an extra security check at the gate for no reason at all. Lufthansa staff in Panama couldn't manage to put me next to my friend on our 14 hour fight to Frankfurt. When I was trying to buy a drink in the bar nobody would help. There is no duty free for rum, perfume etc. Instead its all bags and clothing.

❎ Not Verified | Just to add a voice to an already long list of complaints against the highly unreasonable secondary security measures at this airport. Why do they have a secondary security check if not to prove that their first one was unsafe and unable to deal with potential issues? Then how can anyone be sure that even the second instance of annoying unpacking, unclothing and un-shoeing and manhandling will make travelers any safer? Most problematic of all, however, is their confiscation of liquids, including water (you purchased for $6 at their airport, for example!) with the claim that no passengers on a US-bound plane can carry any liquids over 100 ml! Seriously? When was the last time their security chief traveled on a US-bound plane? I fly a US-bound plane at least 4-5 times a year from various destinations and this was the first time I have heard such nonsense. On top of confiscating travelers' drinking liquids (regardless of the fact that you may actually need it during your flight because your airline has zero service) they corral people into a crowded gate area with no water fountains, no toilets, no nothing at all. Most people end up standing for a long time, or lying on the floor, angry, tired and thirsty. Great job, guys, this was my first, last and only time I have ever had to suffer the indignity of being your customer. Absolutely avoid this airport if you possibly can. Wifi is free only for 30 minutes. No shops open at night, even though there are flights at that time, the only place open was a small cafe that had no running water.

❎ Unverified | Awful airport! Bad service all around. First off they are doing work that has caused several black outs and are not prepared for what's to come or how to fix it. Several cancelled flights, with no consideration for its members. I've included pictures of their "waiting area" at the gates for the cancelled flights. While they had an area blocked off for another gate. Not to mention the disaster at baggage (pic also included). Not one employee would give you a straight or similar answer to everyone's concern over baggage or cancelled flights. They were saying it's "unofficial" but "officially" they're cancelled. Umm what? No vouchers for food. No comp for the flights. They did offer a stay, if you were willing to wait for hours to get transported, without your luggage of course. That "might" get brought to you later or the next day. Bathrooms were disgusting because their water was off too. Don't know how that ties to electricity but whatever. Never coming here again.

❎ Unverified | I must say I agree with all the bad reviews listed. This airport is more like a shopping mall than anything else and the food is extremely expensive. Prices are far higher compared to other airports in Latin America, even higher than airports in USA and Europe. Most of the choices offered at the good court is fast food. Burgers for US14, Domino's Pizzas for US18. Cappuccinos for US7. Unbelievable! Not sure why people are forced to a secondary check before boarding. Once you are checked a second time, they place some sort of stamp in your boarding pass and you are forced to seat on a designated area while you wait for boarding. This is ridiculous. If you can avoid this airport, do it. If not, make sure you don't have to wait more than 1-2 hours for your connecting flight.

✅ Verified Review | Horrible service at Panama airport. Horribly dirty floors and walls in waiting areas. No signage for food court. Super expensive food for so little options and bad service. Bathrooms everywhere in the airport are packed and filthy. Overall the worst airport ever! I have been travelling through Panama for over 20 years. Although they remodeled it, it still fails as a good airport hub.

✅ Verified Review | Panama is probably the worst overall airport experience that I have ever had - and I've had a lot. The secondary checks are preposterous, the airport personnel (including airline personnel) are uniformly ill informed and rude, the place is quite hot and humid, and on and on. Nothing a lot of other people haven't said, but I went through their comments and it was yes, yes, yes all true. I also believe that the airport is more of a shopping mall than an airport. Gates are very far apart because of all of the shopping, none of which appealed to me in the least. Signage was horrid. Food was almost funny: $16 for a Domino's pizza. Really nothing good to say about it. We would have gone into Panama City for our layover, but were advised that it could take more than an hour by taxi if traffic was bad. Next time I'll skip Tocumen.