ALAS – Academia Latinoamericana de Aviación Superior
Flight SchoolPanama City, Panama
Prepare for ALAS – Academia Latinoamericana de Aviación Superior
ALAS – Academia Latinoamericana de Aviación Superior appears to run its own battery at the cadet admission, Copa-set psychometric and aptitude testing, rather than a commercial one.
ALAS – Academia Latinoamericana de Aviación Superior publishes nothing about it, so treat it as the likely battery rather than a settled fact.
ALAS is Copa Airlines' own pilot academy and runs its own admission process: document and academic review, psychometric and aptitude testing, honesty testing, group exercises, a simulator evaluation and interviews, followed by the Panamanian authority's class 1 medical and psychological assessment.
No ALAS – Academia Latinoamericana de Aviación Superior-specific course yet
ALAS – Academia Latinoamericana de Aviación Superior's selection uses Copa-set psychometric and aptitude testing, which we do not train for specifically. The general aptitude course still covers the abilities it measures.
Provider mappings are based on public information and may change. Last checked September 2026.
ALAS – Academia Latinoamericana de Aviación Superior is the cadet pilot academy backed by Copa Airlines, based at Marcos A. Gelabert Airport (Albrook) in Panama City. Created as a non-profit school to train Panamanian pilots to the international standards Copa requires, it operates under Panama's Autoridad Aeronáutica Civil and had roughly 190 students working through its programme in 2026, with graduating classes moving directly towards the airline's flight deck.
Training at ALAS
The academy delivers an English-language commercial pilot programme of more than 250 flying and simulator hours on top of over 600 hours of ground theory, typically completed in 18 to 20 months on a fleet centred on the Piper Cadet with Seneca twins and fixed-base simulators. Its purpose is explicitly airline-focused: graduates leave with the licences and standards required to enter first-officer training at Copa Airlines, and the academy graduated 42 new Panamanian pilots into the airline as recently as March 2026.
Selection is run to Copa's own standards, open to Panamanian applicants aged 19 or over with completed secondary education and advanced English, who must pass the medical and psychological evaluations required by the civil aviation authority as well as the academy's admission testing. With every place effectively a doorway into a specific airline, the assessment stage is decisive, and thorough preparation for computer-based aptitude and psychometric testing is one of the most effective ways candidates can strengthen their application.
Where ALAS – Academia Latinoamericana de Aviación Superior trains
Panama City covers both theory and flight.