The Europeans are coming

Lufthansa will next March become the sixth european airline with direct scheduled flights to Costa Rica, following the inauguration of service between Frankfurt and San José.

Lufthansa plans to use an Airbus A340-300 with up to 280 passengers, operating twice a week, with an initial round-trip economy-class price in the range of $1,000, according to the airline’s website.

Amsterdam-based KLM will have a direct connection to Costa Rica, starting next October.

Iberia, British Airways, Air France, Condor, and Edelweiss – a Swiss subsidiary of Lufthansa - are the other airlines, which in recent years started direct flights to Costa Rica.

Charter operators with flights to Costa Rica include United Kingdom-based Thompson.

Panama for its part is second in direct connections by scheduled carriers with European countries – France, Germany, Netherlands and Spain.

However, Turkish Airlines last year started an Istanbul-Bogota-Panama flight.

European visitors are valuable because they tend to come for long periods, compared to Americans, who represent the biggest source of revenue for regional tourism.