Review of Copa Airlines flight Bogota → Panamá City in Economy

Pre flight

Hello again and welcome to another FR serie. After 2 and a half months working in Colombia and Mexico it was finally time to go back home again. This time my route will be a little bit different as the inbound flights (Barcelona-Munich-Toronto-Bogota) which you can find here also. My flights today will be:

So let's go. First of all I must explain a problem I had while making check in. As I was flying with 2 airlines on my return flights (Copa and Lufthansa) I wasn't able to make the check in on lufthansa flights and it's seat reservation, which is 23 hours before flight departure. Thumbs down for this!

at the airport

The STD of my flight was 15:32 PM. I went to the airport 2 and a half hours before departure as I wanted to change my seat in my Lufthansa long haul flight, but it was impossible because by now I was flying with Copa Airlines.

There are about 30 minutes from my friend house to the airport. On sunday, the 26th road is partly closed because it is converted to what they call "ciclovía", and the street is converted to a sport road where people can practise different kind of sports such as biking, hiking…

My driver went to the parking on Terminal 1

This is the Arrivals Area, departures are on the next floor

And quickly I went to the departures area, where I made my check in with Copa Airlines.

I like El Dorado Airport because it is quite modern, and normally is clean and quick. Today it wasn't an exception and after my check in I went to the immigration and security controls, which were nearly empty. I must admit, at that time, not many flights are departing and a few hours later this area can be a little bit congested.

And soon I arrived at gate 31. Of course it was very early, so I decided to seat next to a window where I had some nice views from the tarmac. EasyFly ATR was taxiing to the runway. 

And soon my plane arrived!

And the KLM was arriving from Amsterdam too

Which plane do you like more?

The 788 about to start it's flight to Santiago de Chile

Boarding started at 14:45, some good 45 minutes before departure. First of all, business class passengers, those ones with disabilities and passengers travelling with children. Later groups 1,2,3 and mine, 4.

Time to go

bogota-panama city

Flight was quit full. Panama is the busiest international route from Bogota and most of their flights are full. At least, this was my experience. My first impressions was a surprise. We were aboard HP-1725CMP, which is equipped with PTV and the cabin looks brand new. Bogota flights are usually used by their older planes, which aren't equipped with personal enterteinment and seats are quite old. But today it was different.

Here we are

The weather wasn't good today. There was a heavy rain over Bogota city at the time. Kinda scary sky

While waiting for pushback the first Iberia flight from Madrid arrived.

Route map, this flight will be short.

Captain welcomed us on board and told us flight time and weather. Soon pushback started and engine 1 was turned ON.

Safety video was shown on the PTV

It started raining just before flight started.

And taxiing to the runway

While we were getting closer to the runway engine 2 was turned ON. We took off at 15:49.

Hasta la próxima tierrita linda!

As always, we took off and soon we made a right turn heading to Panama. It was very cloudy, but last views from the southern part of Bogota and Usme were able to be seen from the window.

But soon they disappeared as we crossed the clouds.

And skies were better here. If I'm not wrong this should be Magdalena River. We were stablished at FL340

But there were some interesting cloud formations. Winter already arrived in Colombia, and even more in the Chocó region, one of the wettest areas on the earth.

Meal service started about 30 minutes into the flight. There were 2 options: beef of turkey. I went with the beef. Drinks came some good 10 minutes later, when we were arriving in the Colombian-Panama border.

During the flight we avoided some stormclouds, but it wasn't bumpy at all. Soon descent started into the "hub de las Américas"

And those nice islands in the Pacific Ocean were seen.

We made a heavy "U turn", I guess it was because of the traffic. But soon we were on finals on PTY airport. Of course, dozens of ships were waiting for their turn to across the Channel.

Weather was scary. A few chops before landing and some views from the city.

And here we come

And touchdown after 1:20 in the air.

Welcome to Panama. We landed at 17:08. We taxied to the gate and disembarked without any problem, but as always on Copa Airlines, crew requested to close window shades and open air conditioning.

And again in Panama Airport, which was, as always, very cramped. I went to the gate for my next flight.

Thank you very much for reading!