Copa Airlines

Not Verified | My wife and I flew from Vancouver to Rio de Janeiro to visit relatives and a much needed vacation. On our flight back to Vancouver we experienced the worst customer services to date. The aircraft for our flight from Panama City to Denver came to the gate with a slight delay (no problem, that happens), we boarded and in a few minutes the crew informed that the aircraft had a mechanical issue that would take 30-60minutes to be fixed. Then, 10 minutes later we were informed that the doors would be opened so we could leave the plane and board the plane again once the issue was fixed. However that was said only in Spanish, which I understand, but a good part of the passengers didn’t. One of the flight attendants walked by and I verified if the information was correct, she confirmed and I told the passengers around me that we were supposed to leave the aircraft. We left and were told to be back in an hour to board the plane. When we got back the boarding gate had changed in the departures screen, but the gate where we boarded first affirmed that nothing had changed. Since it seemed confusing, I went to the customer service to make sure what we were supposed to do. The customer service confirmed the gate change, but all the passengers were still at the former gate going through security and getting ready to board the plane (which would no longer be taking off). Then we proceeded to the customer service help desk to look for a solution. After almost TWO hours of waiting (I was the 3rd person on the line) for answers or a position from the airline, which remained in total silence for most of that time, some of the customer service members for the airline were literally laughing at the passengers looking for assistance, of which was a lady with a two month old baby. Total disrespect. The customer centre was basically empty, only one young lady trying her best, but completely unable to assist, since she didn’t know what to do. The supervisor literally took of saying he would print boarding passes and didn’t show up for 45 minutes. After multiple attempts asking at the gate for more team members to come to customer centre to assist the passengers, two Copa agents showed up to assist. I was the 3rd on the line and it took almost 2 hours to get to the counter and be assisted... after a long wait Copa printed a few vouchers, which were not enough for all the passengers (they ended up printing more). A route that was supposed to take 23 hours, ended up taking 39hours. Then after all our check bags were missing. I called the company and I was told to send an email, which will take 7 to 15 days to be answered, and again, the lady over the phone, made little of the situation and said that eventually it will be taken care of. I wonder how this airline can be so disrespectful to customers... The level of disrespect at their customer centre at the airport in Panama City was just disgusting. It came to a point that the lady with a two month old baby said they should stop laughing because nobody was joking around. Simply sad and disgusting!

Not Verified | The mint, but the customer service when it comes to helping the passenger is the worst that my family and I have experienced! To make use of the voucher that Copa provides passengers with compensation for their bad service, to use that voucher is even worse! 5 failed attempts to use it. The staff they have cannot read or pay attention to the passenger! I do not recommend them. Before receiving or doing something with copa airlines, inform yourself well. La mentable, pero el servicio al cliente cuando se trata de ayudar al pasajero es el peor que mi familia y yo hemos experimentado! Para hacer uso de los voucher que Copa le proporciona a los pasajeros con indemnizacion a su mal servicio, para usar ese voucher es aún peor! 5 intentos fallidos para usarlo. El personal que tienen no saben leer ni dar atención al pasajero! No los recomiendo. Antes de recibir o hacer algo con copa airlines, infórmese bien

Not Verified | Asunción to Boston via Panama City. Very good airline, I really recommend it. Crew is friendly, and food is kind of good. The IFE is really poor though. The seat is much better than what I thought because of the price. It’s the fastest way to travel from the South America to North America/ Caribbean

✅ Trip Verified | Copa Airlines customer service is the worst. I bought 5 tickets for my family members and I chose Bank Transfer. The same day I went to my Bank and made the transfer. All of this was done On July 12th, today July 25th, after 15 calls and spoken to even the same representative twice, Copa airlines says that even though I provided proof of the transfer they still don't have the money but the money left my account 13 days ago. I asked them who is the bank involved on these types of transfer and they told me different countries but none is the one they sent me on the instructions on the confirmation email. All they do is give me the run around and nobody knows what is happening. On 5 of those 15 calls I was placed on hold and cut-off after 2 minutes, making me have to call again and explain everything all over again to a new representative. This Airline has no respect for people's hard worked money. First on the confirmation email I was never told to email them with the receipt of the transfer. Second, after that was done and they sent me an auto-reply saying in less than 24 hours we are gonna contact you, nobody did. Third, now that same department is telling the representative to tell me about the money not being on their account. What is this? Couldn't they have emailed me and told me that instead of keep me waiting? Bottom line, I do think that they got the money but they are trying to rip me off.

✅ Trip Verified | San Francisco to Aruba via Panama City. Worst and horrible customer service ever from the check in counter desk representatives in San Francisco Airport who work for Copa Air! We arrived airport 5 minute late before their 1 hour departure window and missed the flights. It’s not the fact that we missed the flight that upset me but what happened afterward- the fact that they were absolutely unwilling to assist/advise what the next course of action would be for their customer that drove me to write this review. Because they were unwilling to do anything, we ended up calling COPA customer service rep who said the only person who can change the flight was at the airport counter. After a few minutes of unpleasant conversation with the airport reps at the COPA counter, the counter representative finally said she needed to talk to a manager. The manager would not come to assist us neither. We didn’t want to wait there forever so we ended up booking a new flight with United instead to be able to take a later flight. It’s an example of poor customer service and staff training of COPA Air! We are very disappointed with COPA Airlines.

✅ Trip Verified | Panama City to Quito. Horrible business class seats, barely reclining. No feet rest. No plugs for electronic devices. Food is despicable. Friendly staff doing their best. Customer center at Panama Tocumen overwhelmed. One agent and 40 people waiting for service. Other desks at different locations have broken down monitors. Requested an earlier flight change, with downgrade from business class to Economy if no seats were available. Was told that the downgrade would cost me over US$ 500.00 for a 80 minutes flight. Awful customer experience and no respect for premium passengers. If you can, stay away from this mediocre airline.

✅ Trip Verified | Los Angeles to Medellin via Panama City. As a first time visitor to the United States, we had traveled all the way from Malaysia, after almost 16 to 20 hours flight, we were preparing for our next flight. It was at LAX when we were told we couldn't board the flight to Colombia because we did not have a visa. No one had told us or updated us that a Visa was now required as when we bought the flight tickets in March, it wasnt required. Somewhere in April the regulation changed and we weren't informed on this matter in any way whatsoever. In LAX, Copa Airlines only had the check in counter and the small hidden office which can be easily missed by the oversized baggage section. Note that you won't get to talk to anyone besides the manager, who's too busy helping everyone check in even though there's 5 to 6 reps at any given time. So we arrived at LAX at 6pm on 28 May 2019, and was lining up to check in for the 11pm flight to Colombia. When we reached our turn, all they could say was that we didn't have our visa and please step aside, the manager will attend to us in a bit. Knowing that we had to wait, we tried to work out the visa issue via online application. All this while, the manager was busy with checking in passengers. And after a few hours of not being able to do much, I went to approach the manager, and all they had to say was please don't step behind the counter area where only their staffs were allowed, and the manager will be with us shortly. And still waiting, not having had any dinner yet, and no place to stay for the night since we had not booked anything while still waiting for this manager, by then it was already 11:30pm. And we still had to wait for the last few people who missed their flight. By the time we managed to speak to the manager, she said to us, "what was your problem again?" All this time all I wanted to know was (1) can our flights be refunded, (2) if not, can we postpone the flights? That was it. And as simple as our questions were, she gave an even simpler answer, "oh in that case, please call the customer service number, we can't do anything here". Then we're like in our minds, you couldn't tell us this on the spot when we were waiting for the past 6 hours? The next day we managed to get the visa thing sorted out thankfully by pulling some strings with our Colombian friends on 29 May, we called the customer service number, and asked them to reschedule our flight as we managed to get the visa done. The price to reschedule? Guess what, its the same price as getting a new airline ticket. For 2 person, we had to pay USD1,800. Wow. We returned to Copa Airline counter on 30 May night. This is the best part, when we arrived at the counter, there was a white American and a hispanic lady. The American missed his 2nd flight because his 1st flight was delayed like 6 hours. Thats why he was there, and the manager offered him a complimentary place to stay, and a flight back first thing in the morning with any of the Star Alliance partners. However he kept insisting on getting on an immediate flight back regardless of the service provider, and this manager eventually let up and walked him all the way to American Airlines. Anyways this was like at 12 30am. We are extremely tired already. Eventually the lady manager was seen walking back, but she never came our way but continued walking away elsewhere alone. Eventually I got fed up and just got tickets American Airlines for USD 2500 for 2 person.

❎ Not Verified | Rio de Janeiro to Boston via Panama. Poor communication-terrible troubleshooting! This airline is horrible. They don’t provide enough information to be useful to their passengers. Booked a business class trip to Brazil via Panama with an agent. Four flights later arrive in Rio 24hrs later even though there were shorter flights. On the return, knowing I have a 15hr layover in Panama, I book a nice hotel and decide to make the best of my night layover in Panama. Only to find out during check-in that I’m required to have a yellow fever certificate since I travelled to Brazil. No one informed me at the time of booking 3 months ago!! (It would have been easy to get a vaccine and certificate from my doctor). So I couldn’t leave the airport and my bag had to be checked straight to Boston. Last time on Copa. I’m done!

✅ Trip Verified | Cali to Buenos Aires via Panama City. This was my first travel with Copa after a few years. I saw many improvements: newer planes, comfortable seats, smiling flight attendants, good catering and inflight entertainment on longer flights. All fights were on time. I think Copa will become my new choice for flights within the Americas, since my traditional hub, Avianca’s Bogota El Dorado airport, became very unreliable: frequent delays because of weather or air traffic mean that, in order to catch my connecting flight, I have to schedule at least 3 to 4 hours layover in Bogota. However, via Panama, 1 hour is enough. With Copa, the only issue to comment is Panama Tocumen airport, which needs an urgent improvement. Otherwise, Copa is capable to deliver an excellent product.

Not Verified | First and last time I fly Copa Airlines. We arrived at the airport 2.5 hours prior to boarding time and we had to run to our gate. I don't know what takes this company so long to check people in. Copa check in was the only check in area that had a completely full line because they spend like 10 minutes per passenger checking them in. We thought it may be only LAX that had this issue but nope, same thing happened on the way back. Another issue, we had a layover in Panama City. We bought our original ticket for 12:26pm, which would be a 1.5 hr layover. We get our tickets from Costa Rica, get on the plane to Panama only to find out that they moved it to a 4pm departure. Never told us anything. It was then that we made sense of a comment the check in agent told us. When she was taking her time getting us checked in, she said "oh, you changed your reservation", my boyfriend and I looked at each other and said "no we didn't". Then she looked at us and didn't even explain her comment, she proceeded with what she was doing. I do take blame that we didn't ask what she meant but if your guests don't know about a change, the reasonable thing to do was explain that it did change by 4 hours. Once we discovered the change, we talked to an agent in Panama and he said they had "told us" that they delayed the flight 2 months ago. My boyfriend nor I ever received such communication. We told the agent this and he claimed that the airline emailed and called every passenger to notify them of the change.