Copa Airlines

✅ 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.

Not Verified | Quito to Panama via Orlando. Worst experience to date. I have been flying on Copa Airlines for the last 5 years or so, traveling at least once a year. The food used to be good quality, like real food, cooked to perfection, and they offered pretty much every drink you could want. Now I see the steady decline on these last two or three recent trips. The last flight's meal was incredibly salty, the vegetables were cold, and potatoes tasted bad. I'm not super picky, but it was a new low that I never thought I'd see on what was my favorite go-to airlines. So no meal on the morning flight, inedible meal on the afternoon flight, and one drink of water in the afternoon because they didn't make coffee. I expect this with some other airlines, so cheap you have to suffer through your trip, but now with Copa doing the same thing, I feel it's time to shop around with different airlines, and plan ahead somehow with meals and drinks that I can bring on the plane.

✅ Trip Verified | Los Angeles to Sao Paulo via Panama City. The aircraft is rather dated, but the flight crew does their best. The problems are divided between quality and service Quality. The food is fair at best, There is no WiFi. Some planes have no power supply or private video. Seat are just ok. Service - the flight crew are great, but customer service is the worst when you call into Copa. Expect them to do little of nothing for you. They is a never ending series of hoops you need to jump thru to get any help .. and even then they shift it to you. With the exception of RyanAir the is no other airline that offers less accomodative Customer Service.

Not Verified | Two days before my flight was scheduled to leave from Orlando to Panama City then to Costa Rica on May 14, 2019, my 17-year old daughter went to ER and was admitted to the hospital for emergency surgery the same day. I communicated with Expedia (purchased tickets through them). Expedia had me to send info from hospital detailing the events. Expedia has gone back and forth with Copa for two weeks with no end in mind to issue my refund for the flight. Finally, Expedia asked me to get involved with Copa directly. I have sent emails to Copa because no one will talk to you over the phone dealing with refunds. Every time I call, I am receiving the run-around and no one seems to know what I am speaking of. This is ridiculous. I have never experienced this issue with other airlines. I had an issue with American and within days my refund was in my account. Copa is not big on customer service. They are big on giving you a hassle. Several Expedia reps I've spoken with stated the same.

Not Verified | Panama City to Toronto. The flight itself was fine. The plane was completely full, however the crew did a good job of getting out the snacks and drinks early on and then it was uneventful. My complaint is with customer service, and the seat upgrade program, that they seem to push really hard at trying to sell upgrades to business class. Since this flight was over 5 hours, I thought I would bid for 2 business seats. I was informed the day of the flight that my bid was unsuccessful, however they had debited my card for the bid. Long story short, 2 months later I am still trying to get a refund for the failed upgrade. This should be an auto refund, why should I have to repeatedly try to retrieve these funds? Very poor in this department. I feel like they are trying to steal my money.

✅ Trip Verified | Panama to San Francisco. Somebody wrote about practice of overbooking. We were told that they can’t assign seats on this flight (booked months ago) due to overload. For a 7 hour flight like Panama City- San Francisco B737 800 is not capable to get enough fuel for this flight if most passengers take allowed luggage.

✅ Trip Verified | Panama City to Mexico. This flight surprised me. Great crew onboard both flights. Good food. On time departures and arrivals. Copa should pick up its game and offer new services as wifi.

✅ Trip Verified | Santiago to Toronto via Panama City. 1) When I checked in at SCL, I was told that the business lounge Copa used was at gate 12. After going through immigration and security formalities, I went to gate 12 but found no lounge. I tried to use the airport map touchscreen nearby but it was out of service. I finally went to another lounge and they also told me that it was at gate 12. I walked around the terminal for 45 minutes and then back to gate 12. I noticed then that there were stairs to the basement, though there were no signs anywhere indicating what was down there. The Star Alliance Lounge was there. I walked in and I was one of only 5 people, which indicates to me that others also had trouble finding the lounge. The receptionist told me that they were going to move soon so they had taken down all the signs a long time ago. It would have been proper for Copa to have informed me at check-in of this issue. 2) Boarding flight 118 was also a problem. After the boarding pass check at the gate, there was a huge crowd of passengers that was not moving at all. It took a long time for this to clear and me being in business class made no difference. 3) On board, I checked the entertainment system and its offerings were very poor - worse than in any economy section even that I have flown in the last five years. 4) The seat was uncomfortable. 5) It took almost an hour after take-off for us to be offered any kind of food/snack. We were simply given bottles of water before take-off. Later in the flight, about an hour after the small lunch was served, I asked a flight attendant for a snack. She challenged me on this and said something would be offered in another hour. I have never encountered this attitude on any other airline ever. She finally gave me something but was clearly not happy about it. 6) At the Copa Air lounge in Panama City, there was little food and no vegetarian meals were offered at all - no sandwiches, no salads - nothing other than fruit and oatmeal cookies. Again, I have never experienced this issue in any other airline lounge in the world. 7) Shortly after I boarded flight 470 to Toronto, we were given menus and then asked for our choice for supper. I mentioned that I had ordered a vegetarian meal (I had in fact been given one on the flight from Santiago) and the flight attendant said he had no record of it. I said that I had booked the ticket about two and a half months ago and received veggie meals on every other flight. He said he would go "confirm." He came back and said no vegetarian meal was available. I asked what I would be fed instead and he said he didn't know. I asked him again - are you saying you're not going to feed me for 5.5 hours? He didn't answer. I told him that this was unacceptable. Then a second flight attendant came and told me the same thing, and asked if maybe I had ordered a veggie meal for 118 and but not for 470. I asked her, "why would anyone do that?" A special meal request is made for the whole flight, not for a single leg. Then a third flight attendant came to me and told me the same things. She finally said they would be able to give me soup and salad if I liked. I said that it wasn't a meal and she said there was nothing she could do. 8) I should note that between the time the first flight attendant told me I would receive no meal and the time we actually left the gate was over 20 minutes. Another Copa employee could have been sent to get me something from one of the airport restaurants. However, no one offered to.

✅ Trip Verified | Panama City to Boston. This has to be the best airline I have flown. From the crew to the food to the comfort, it was all 5 Star.