Big development for the future of flights from Charlotte to Central and South America: TACA, COPA, and Avianca have announced that they will join the Star Alliance, the same airline alliance to which US Airways belongs.
TACA is based in Costa Rica and El Salvador while COPA is the main airline in Panama. Avianca, of course, operates out of Colombia. US Airways currently flies daily to San Jose, Costa Rica and already has a codeshare agreement with TACA, so that probably is the least important aspect going forward.
Potential codeshares with COPA and Avianca substantially increases the chance that we’ll see CLT- Panama City, Panama and CLT – Bogota flights in the future. (Note that US Airways can’t fly to Bogota under the current aviation treaty between the U.S. and Colombia but Colombia is rumored to be interested in signing an Open Skies deal.) The flip side of the coin though is that US Airways could allow their new alliance partners to handle (round up) feed in Central and South America, reducing the incentive to offer nonstops from Charlotte to, say, Lima, Peru. Same argument applies for Guatemala City, Guatemala or just about any non-tourist destination in Central America.
