Background:
This series will cover a quick weekend mileage run on CM down to UIO. I saw a cheap $380 round-trip fare in “E” fare class, which earns the full 100% mileage with OZ (5.2 cents/mile). This will be my first time flying CM, my first flights with split scimitar winglets, and my first trip to South America. The routing was picked to leave Friday evening after work and return Sunday night as to not burn any vacation days.
Part 1 – LAX-PTY [CM 362, Boeing B737-800, Business] – Here
Part 2 – PTY-UIO [CM 829, Boeing B737-800, Economy] – Here
Part 3 – UIO-PTY [CM 828, Boeing B737-800, Economy] – Here
Part 4 – PTY-LAX [CM 302, Boeing B737-800, Business] – You are here
This report will cover the trip from PTY to LAX in J. This flight was also a fortuitous upgrade, so I'm not going to complain. CM seems very generous with upgrades to fill out their J cabin, which is not a good feature if you are a real J revenue customer.
Pre-flight:
After arriving from UIO, I only had about 30 minutes until boarding was scheduled to start for my flight to LAX so I bolted to the Copa Club. Not for the food offering, but to try and grab a shower.
The showers were both full, so instead I just quickly changed in the bathroom and grabbed some dilute coffee and took a brief rest in the over run lounge.
This is the entire “buffet” area in the Copa Club. It is terrible.
After my brief stop in the lounge, I continued my journey towards my gate. The main lobby area. They are advertising the new IST-PTY route being started by TK.
KL B77W.
FIDS.
Since this is a US bound flight, there was security at the gate (metal detector and baggage x-ray) and you were dumped into a quarantine area.
Outside, our B738 with split scimitar winglets is waiting for us.
At the adjacent gate was a CM B738 that is operated by AeroRepublica.
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Copa Airlines, CM 302
Equipment: Boeing B737-800 [HP-1844CMP, delivered March 2015]
Departure: 18:22 (ATD: 18:41)
Arrival: 23:35 (ATA: 23:12)
Flight time: 6:31
Right on time, boarding started up. Priorities were respected and I was down the jetbridge. A view of the seats as I make my way back to 4A.
My seat where pillow/blanket and amenity kits were preplaced.
The amenity kit contents.
The seat pitch is excellent, but again no under seat storage in all rows with this cabin.
As I settle in, the FA comes through and hands out menus. The menu contains all of the PTY-LAX routes so you have to find the page for your flight.
The menu for this flight.
The FA then came through and offered water or orange juice from a tray. I figured it wasn’t worth the hassle asking for champagne so just took the orange juice.
A look at our neighbor.
The last person to board was my seatmate, the J load was 16/16 on this flight. He was Brazilian. He attempted to speak Spanish to the FA, but was quickly exposed as a fraud when she was taking the dinner orders and spoke English the rest of the flight. By the time the FA got to me, the only entrée left was the pasta… She also took drink orders.
The safety video played while we backed up and taxied out to the runway. We pass the CM B738 in Panamanian national team livery.
Aligning onto the runway…
… and we are off.
The AF, KL, and LH heavies as we head down the runway.
Goodbye Panama.
The sunset as we turn towards LAX.
IFE content is the same as before, and was a decent selection for 6 hour flights.
After leveling off, in-flight service started with a vanilla scented oshibori.
My aperitif was served with warmed mixed nuts.
About 20 minutes later, my dinner tray was laid down along with another beer. It’s nice to get a soup, but I don’t know if I really consider this a starter. Either way, the soup was actually good tasting.
The Y looking salad.
Buttonhole in the napkin.
After finishing my soup, the bowl was removed and promptly replaced with my main. The pasta was mediocre. Not great and the portion size was small. It looked like a microwave meal.
After the dinner trays were cleared, the FA served desserts and coffee/tea from a cart. I chose the cheesecake instead of the sundae. The size was meager! It was literally bite-size. She ran out of coffee, so told me she’s bring me some freshly brewed coffee in a bit.
Water bottles were handed out along with my coffee.
I watched movies and napped the rest of the trip. The FA never came back through the cabin to check on passengers. She just sat in the galley on her phone. The mood-lighting turned on here.
The snack was served along with coffee. This cheese plate wasn’t even as good as the one in Part 1. It was pretty mediocre.
Dropping into LAX.
We landed and taxied to a remote stand. I’ve never deplaned from a remote stand at LAX before. We had to take buses back to TBIT
And that wraps up this quick trip on CM.
Nice to read about your return flight with Copa, Michael. Looks like a pretty average flight with Copa in J. Sorry to hear the flight wasn't better. The food looks tasty, but that's annoying that they ran out of the main dish. I often go with pasta on planes, but I'd have chosen the beef as well too by the looks of it on the menu.
Thanks for sharing.
A little delayed, but finally here! I was pretty tired so was lazy and took a lot of cell phone shots for this report. Thanks for your comments Matthew.
"Looks like a pretty average flight with Copa in J. Sorry to hear the flight wasn't better."
- CM is just an average carrier, and as long as your expectations are in line with that, it won't be that disappointing ;) but overall, the US carriers might offer better experiences.
"I often go with pasta on planes, but I'd have chosen the beef as well too by the looks of it on the menu."
- Based on the menu, the beef sounded better, I couldn't see what it looked like since everyone in my row was forced to order the pasta. The DL catering you had on the shorter ATL-PTY flight was much better.
Thanks MIchael !
Again, this is not this experience which will me choose CM in the future !
I'd even say this airline is below average... Many airlines serve better meals in Y. ^^
Merci Clement^^
No trips on LH to PTY in your near future? ;)
Maybe your AC/UA experiences in a couple weeks will recalibrate your opinions of the Americas :)
Hi Michael.
What a disappointing experience - from the lounge to the onboard service!.
Not being able to get a shower sucks, especially at a hub location. The food offering at the club is pathetic. I wonder if TK will use the CM lounge for its flight or contract someone else.
Thanks for this FR.
Thank you for sharing this FR with us!
The lounge 'buffet' is a joke from the looks of your pictures.
Nice shot of that KL 77W in the new livery!
The pre-departure OJ looks like some heavily processed stuff like last time.
Great aerial shots on the way!
Not the bext experience with CM on this itinerary, they got you from Point A to Point B but were unfortunately lacking in the service department.
Thanks once again for sharing this interesting series with us.
Have a good one, see you!
Hmmmm... I've been disappointed that Copa seems to be feuding with Aeroplan, and doesn't seem to be available on Aeroplan, as they're one of the few *A carriers I've yet to sample.
After checking this out, I'm a little less upset about having missed them thus far. A little bit of an underwhelming experience, it would seem.
Still, interesting to see the premium product of an airline that's under-represented on here -- well presented and reported as usual.