I flew on Copa Airlines! This 6 hour flight on a 737-800 took me from
Montreal, Canada to Panama City, Panama. Copa Airlines is the flag carrier of Panama, and
operates a 100-strong fleet of only Boeing 737s. They’ve used Panama’s geographic location
in Central America quite strategically to turn Panama City into a huge connecting
hub between North and South America. As part of that strategy, Copa Airlines
serves two destinations in Canada, those being, naturally, Toronto and Montreal. This makes for a pretty easy way to visit
Panama, at least for eastern Canadians. So, when my friend Mark proposed a trip there
in January this year, well, I was down to go visit a part of the world that I’d never been to
before… and also get away from the cold for a bit! I opted to take the flight out of Montreal, which totally makes sense to fly four hours
east from Calgary to go six hours south. In fairness, until Copa starts
serving… Vancouver or something, this is the easiest way to get to
Panama without going through the U.S. Montreal’s YUL airport is one of those airports
that seems to have reached capacity years ago, and this lineup for Air Transat
looked… pretty horrendous. Meanwhile, next to that mess, Copa Airlines has a smaller check-in area that’s off to the
side with a much more reasonable wait. It was easy enough to check in online though and
I was only travelling with a carry-on anyway. YUL has a central security area that’s used for both international and domestic
flights, which was just as busy. The two areas are divided though,
and you have to scan a boarding pass to access the international bit,
which, immediately, is much nicer! We’d be leaving from one of
the gates at the very end of the international section in this
newer extension that opened in 2016. This whole area is like night and day
compared to the domestic portion of the airport which could badly use the same treatment. Our 737 for today, unfortunately not parked in
a great spot, was an 11-year-old Boeing 737-800 delivered in November 2012 and registered
as Hotel Papa 1828 Charlie Mike Papa. Normally, Copa Airlines uses
their 737 MAX 9s on this route, however this was filmed in January
when many of those weren’t flying. And indeed, many of Copa’s were not, as you’ll
see later on when we get to Panama City. Now if Copa’s livery looks similar to that of… a particularly large American
airline, that’s not a coincidence. Back in 1998, Continental Airlines
acquired a 49% stake in Copa, which led to this very similar looking
branding. That investment was also what allowed the airline to experience such
rapid growth throughout the early 2000s. Continental eventually exited that partnership
in 2008, and obviously merged with United, so I do wonder why Copa has stuck with
this look for so long after that ended. However, Copa does have a lot of special liveries, and easily my favourite of those is
their 75th anniversary retro livery which I saw last year also here in Montreal.
Copa’s Montreal flights come in the previous evening and overnight here before going
back to Panama, so boarding started mostly on time at around 6:30AM. Let’s go see
what 6 hours on Copa Airlines is like! My seat for the next little while
would be 22F, just behind the wing. Now, Copa says that their Economy Class has
31” of pitch, which is usually fine for me. However, these seats are a bit
thicker, which would normally be good, except that means the legroom is not the
best at all for someone of my height. Typically I would have
grabbed an extra legroom seat, but by the time I booked this,
all of those were already taken. Thinking the normal seats would be
fine, I kinda gambled and lost this time around and would just have to make do
with this. And also get up and move… a lot. The wing view is pretty nice from here though, although you’d be forgiven for
mistaking this for a United plane. I will give Copa credit,
these seats do look very nice, and the fact that there’s actual
built-in IFE is a bonus. Plus, Boeing Sky Interior is always nice to look at and
does wonders when you travel with only carry-ons. We were then told we’d be delayed
by about half an hour due to a delay in getting fuel. In the meantime,
Copa’s safety video was played for us. We eventually pushed back from
the gate a bit behind schedule, and here’s the departure from
Montreal, off of runway 06R. Today’s flight would take us almost
directly south from Montreal, passing over the northeastern United
States, and then across the Bahamas, Cuba, and the Caribbean Sea
before arriving into Panama City. In each Economy seat, Copa
has a standard tray table which slides but didn’t quite fit over my knees. In this quite roomy seatback
pocket was an air sickness bag, Copa’s inflight magazine, which
had plenty of reading material, as well as some information about the airline and
its impressive route network through Panama City. It also had this bit about their Dreams
Business Class seat, which is a lie flat seat only found on their 737 MAX 9s. Copa is one
of the few airlines to have lie flats on a 737, so even though it was out of my budget… this
time, it would’ve been cool to see as I walked by. Lastly, there’s also the safety
card for their larger 737s. Most, but not all of Copa’s 737-800s have these
inflight entertainment screens in every seat. These ones are pretty new and responsive, and
they had a decent selection of movies on board. There weren’t quite as many TV shows,
but they did have some music from Panama. There was also a moving map,
albeit in the older style with just a couple different views updating as we went. Lastly, there was a tab for
connecting gate information and also a place to give some feedback. The crew also gave out complimentary earbuds
to anybody that wanted some. It’s also worth mentioning that there’s a USB port at the
bottom of the screen for charging devices. For some reason, the seatbelt sign
stayed on for the entire flight, and it seemed to be treated as… more of a
suggestion by the cabin. It wasn’t until we were near the coast of the Carolinas
that the crew started the onboard service. It was also right around then that
there was a break in the clouds, giving us a brief glimpse of North Carolina
down below, as well as the city of New Bern. Now, it turns out that Copa actually serves
a proper breakfast service on these long morning flights, and we had the option of
a banana oatmeal cake or an English muffin. I went for the latter, which came
with a small side bowl of fruit as well as the actual sandwich, some
hash browns, and a slice of ham. Those hashbrowns were very tasty, and
the fruit was pretty fresh as well. The actual English muffin was very good too
- nice and warm and really hit the spot. The meal service was followed
up by a drink service as well, and I just had some water in this recyclable cup. I will say, the trays themselves
are a really nice quality too, and the utensils, although plastic, are
durable enough to actually be reusable. Around that point, we left North America behind somewhere near Wilmington, and
continued south over open water. Now, one thing about the service is that it took
an hour between the crew finishing the service and coming back to collect the trays, so everyone
was left holding theirs for quite a long time. These were eventually cleared
somewhere over the Bahamas, and I took that opportunity for
some much-needed standing-up time. This 737-800 seated 160 passengers
in two different cabins. Up front was Copa’s Business Class cabin, which has a fairly standard 4 rows of
recliner style seats in a 2-2 layout. Behind that, is a solid bulkhead with 4 rows
of “Premium” seats, with 24 of those total. These have a bit of extra legroom with 34” of
pitch, but were also fully occupied already. The rest of the cabin is standard Economy, with
120 Economy class seats in the usual 3-3 layout. This lavatory in the very
back was a typical slimline 737 one with not a lot of space but did the job. After that point, my seat
neighbours very generously offered to let me have some time in the
aisle seat, which I happily accepted. The cabin crew also gave out customs
forms for Panama around then too. I was able to sleep there in the aisle
seat for the last little bit of the flight, and later switched back to
the window for the arrival. With that, we were starting our descent, and the Caribbean coast of Panama just
became visible through the clouds. We got some other great views of the dense
forest down below as we descended further, and here’s the arrival into Panama
City’s Tocumen International Airport, making a very… interesting
landing onto runway 03R. So that was Copa Airlines
from Montreal to Panama City! From a comfort standpoint, well, I did not
enjoy this flight all that much. That sort of legroom is barely manageable for me for 3
or 4 hours tops, so 6 was really pushing it. Even though that put a bit of a damper on this
flight for me, I don’t want to dwell on it too much, because the thing is, by almost every
other metric, Copa has a solid onboard offering. Getting a complimentary meal in Economy
class on a 737 is a rare occurrence, and it was genuinely tasty. Seeing that, plus their built-in IFE,
and all of the connections that they offer through Panama City, makes it pretty clear
why they’ve been so successful over the years. I think at some point in the future it might
be worth trying out their Dreams Business Class to see how it compares, but I think I will be
steering clear of their standard Economy seats. Thanks so much for watching this
trip report with Copa, and I will see you next time for some interesting
domestic aviation action here in Panama!