Case Study: Copa Airlines achieves 50% reduction in connectivity costs with Fortinet Secure SD-WAN

Leading Latin American Airline Saves 50% in Connectivity Costs in Its National and Metropolitan Network With Fortinet Secure SD-WAN

Copa Airlines, a major Latin American carrier serving 31 countries, faced steep revenue losses during the COVID-19 pandemic and needed to cut costs while modernizing its network and securing a growing multi‑cloud environment. The airline’s IT team aimed to reduce expensive MPLS dependence, improve resilience and visibility, and quickly deploy secure connectivity across its Panama offices and airport hub.

Copa implemented Fortinet Secure SD‑WAN using existing FortiGate firewalls along with FortiManager and FortiAnalyzer to centrally manage policies and analytics. The migration from MPLS to SD‑WAN delivered a 50% reduction in national and metropolitan connectivity costs, improved uptime through automatic failover and multi‑ISP support, enhanced security posture, and greater centralized visibility and scalability for cloud and critical applications.

Copa Airlines

Hugo Aquino

Vice President of Technology