Review: Copa Business Class 737-800 (PTY-LIM)

@Ben Nice review of a somewhat lackluster product. I'm curious, and I mean no ill-will by the question, but do you consider this as "seeing" or "visiting" Lima? I'm not sure if you have ever been or not, but if not, does this check it off your list? Always debated on whether I've "been" somewhere when just connecting through an airport. Certainly appreciate the dedication to your craft, but I don't see how flying into PTY, briefly sleeping in an airport hotel, spending all day at an airport, only to fly to another airport just to fly home is enjoyable. I get ultimately it is a business and you trade your time for money the same as me sitting at a computer, so, I guess joke is on me? Have a great day!

Man's not flying in to enjoy, this is his full-time job...

I love flying but this is a pretty brutal trip. Two terrible copa flights then redeye back to Miami lollllll. Doesn’t sound incredible.

I agree. And I love an emirates review (and flight) as much as the next person. I just positioned my family of five to fly the a380 from Düsseldorf to Dubai because there were biz seats available. I know the copa got downgraded but this trip seems pretty miserable and kind of ugly lollllll. No disrespect but for 50k aeroplan I’d be pissed.

COPA is crazy cheap compared to other ways to get to Lima. And almost always on time. But yes their food sucks and right now T2 in Panama is garbage there is literally nothing there except the lounge. No stores, not even a single restaurant.

Copa is beating AA on price, and since they have a business class, they're beating AV for 'premium' traffic. I doubt this lousy product will ever improve. When AV, TA, and CM flew these routes I think things were a little bit better, but probably not much.

The Latin American aviation market is very price conscious. What people from elsewhere would call a lousy product, the local market sees as inexpensive transportation. That's why there are multiple ULCCs but no premium carriers based here.

This is the $100,000 question. I feel like a lot of bloggers claim they've been to X-hundred countries which, while true, is a misrepresentation of what's being presumed by the reader because bloggers want to generally sell you on the fact that they've not "paid" for those flights to that incorrect number of places. They've physically been there, yes, but they haven't done anything touristy to get a feel for the place. Ben isn't nearly as bad as some other bloggers who claim BS things in their blogs but generally travel bloggers rely on nonsensical statistics to ply their trade - affiliate links.

As a non-blogger, I've *been* to 68 countries at last Global Entry count a year ago, while I've visited about 61. For instance, I just transited Brussels. I didn't leave the airport grounds though technically I left the airport as my layover was ~11 hours so I got a hotel room at the airport Sheraton. While I've been to Belgium once before, about 10 years ago, for a short shopping day-trip from The Hague, I would never tell anyone that I'd "been" to Belgium. But that layover would absolutely count as "having been" there for many a travel blogger.

We love Panama, and have visited twice in 2017 and 2018. Unfortunately, our love for Panama does not extend to COPA. We flew r/t IAD-PTY. Judging by your photos, we had the same plane. Business class was marginal. The service(?) was abominable and nasty. The flight attendants on our return flight in 2018 spent most of the flight ignoring passengers while they applied copious amounts of makeup. The Canals are fab. The Marriott Buenaventura was excellent. Twice in Panama was enough, given COPA.

Gosh, my least favorable airports PTY and LIM, plus one of my least favorable airline CM ... obviously nothing good would come out of it.
Catering/Inflight product and Service Delivery are quite weak.
I appreciate your accurate review.

This summer I flew to PY to fly back with my parents, they are both disabled. I requested we be seated together. That is Xtra charge. I requested the seats at the partition, for the leg room and seats in no front. Those seats are Xtra. Price varies from 120 to 3oo dollars, each seat. Seats are so tight and the food was so poor
My parents flew back on their own, I requested wheelchair for both. In Panama, they were almost left behind along with another woman also needing a wheelchair. There were plenty of employees around. No wheelchairs came, every body boarded and employees starting to disperse. A young man came out of the ramp area, he went over to them and asked if they need help. They told him they are on this flight but need chairs. He jumped to action. He got co workers and got them 9n the plane. Door closed behind them

I'm surprised by your experience. I fly Copa MIA-BSB regularly. I have been on a Max once. The rest have been 738s. I have never had a poor aircraft. always have had seat back entertainment and power. My experience in business class has always been good with the exception of the guy who brought small children in business, where they proceeded to cry or cause havoc for 6 hours. Sorry I'm that guy who thinks no one under 10 should be in business class. Even worse when the people think that the other passengers think their children are cute and don't contain them.

I flew bussiness class with my wife and daughters last year on November 26th to UiO, and it was the worst business class experience of my life. The flight attendant was rude, they gave us a bag of pretzels as tbe meal and a small bag of cookies and I got a bad look from the flight atgendant when I asked for more water. It was just economy with better seats. Copa has gone down hill. I hate traveling via Copa. They need to go to Lufthansa and Emirates to get some training and to see what real business class looks like.