Copa pays the price for diplomatic spat with Venezuela

Copa Airlines registered a second-quarter operational loss of $49 million in the second quarter, in part due to a diplomatic spat between Panama and Venezuela that froze flights to Caracas.

In March, a dependency of Panama's government suggested that Venezuela's President Nicolás Maduro was involved in money laundering. As tempers flared, all economic relations between the two countries were frozen for several weeks.

Venezuela is a profitable destination for Copa because most other airlines have cancelled their operations as a result of the country's economic collapse.