Copa resumes flights to Venezuela

Copa was forced to suspend operations on April 6 due to a diplomatic crisis between Venezuela and Panama, which was settled on Thursday. Flights will resume May 1st.

Currently, Copas website is Scheduling flights from May 1 to May 24 to the cities of Caracas, Valencia, and Maracaibo.

Passengers with tickets not used or in the process of  refunds (issued until April 5 and with travel date between April 5 and July 5) will be allowed to use the ticket towards a new reservation with their  original itinerary from or to Venezuela without being charged a penalty, 

He added that "passengers wishing to continue with their refund process can do so", and that the "exception does not apply to tickets that have been modified between April 5 and 27".

"In addition, Copa Airlines will be offering, from today, special promotional rates for a limited time for passengers traveling between Panama and Venezuela," the airline said.

The airline’s chief executive, Pedro Heilborn, told reporters Friday that Copa expected to "begin regularizing flights to Venezuela next week," to give us time to "register flights in the systems, sell them and reserve them." 

"We are going to reprogram most" of the canceled flights, said Heilborn, who acknowledged that the suspension ordered by the Venezuelan government in principle for a period of 90 days forced the company to "cancel 900 flights" scheduled for that period.

The top executive did not refer to the financial impact of the crisis but explained that "we canceled  flights  overnight, without prior notice, which caused that income to be lost, but also the cost relating to operations "

The governments of Venezuela and Panama announced on Thursday the normalization of relations and the return of their respective ambassadors "for the sake of maintaining constructive bilateral relations and not affecting the welfare of their citizens."

They also agreed to "keep the diplomatic dialogue open in order to continue addressing the various aspects of the bilateral agenda."