Copa Airlines 737 Economy Review (Paramaribo-Panama City)

It looks like United, it feels like United, it’s part of Star Alliance… but it’s Panama-based Copa Airlines.

I recently visited Suriname, a small country on the northeast coast of South America. I’d wanted to visit this country after getting to know lots of Surinamese people – and trying the great food – in the Netherlands (this is a former Dutch colony). It was well worth a visit, but there aren’t a lot of flight options out of the country.

After flying in on KLM, I ended up booking a flight out with Copa Airlines. Booking a one-way flight from Paramaribo to Panama City would have been very expensive, and there didn’t happen to be any award availability around my travel dates. But I found a good deal on a ticket from Paramaribo to Aruba, with a free stopover in Panama.

Copa Airlines flies just twice per week to Suriname. My flight was completely full. In this review, find out what it was like flying Copa Airlines Economy Class on their Boeing 737-800!

Flight Details

Flight number	CM319
Route	Paramaribo (PBM) to Panama City (PTY)
Aircraft type	Boeing 737-800
Class of travel	Economy Class
Seat number	8F (extra legroom seat)
On-time performance	We arrived 20 minutes early
Star rating

The route

Flight Cost

I paid USD281.20 (~AU$438) for a one-way Basic Economy ticket from Paramaribo to Aruba via Panama City. Copa Airlines offers a free stopover in Panama City and I took advantage of this to stay a few days and visit the Panama Canal.

In order to add a stopover, I used the multi-city booking tool on the Copa Airlines website. When booking this way, the website did not give me an option to choose which fare category I wanted. I could only book Basic Economy. (It turns out that Copa Airlines then rejected my Australian credit card and I had to make several phone calls to eventually complete the booking.)

Copa Airlines doesn’t include checked baggage or seat selection on a Basic Economy ticket. I was able to check in a bag for free as a Star Alliance Gold member, and opted to pay USD45.47 (~AU$71) for a Premium Seat with extra legroom. Note that Copa Airlines charges different, oddly specific amounts for seat selection depending on the exact seat that you choose. I opted not to sit in an exit row because I believe this requires you to speak Spanish.

Airport Experience

Johan Adolf Pengel International Airport is a long drive from the centre of Paramaribo. I was warned there may be traffic, so I allowed extra time to reach the airport. In the end, I probably allowed a bit too much time because I arrived 20 minutes before check-in for CM319 opened.

Passengers aren’t allowed to enter the terminal until check-in opens, so I had to wait outside in the heat for a little while. The waiting area was at least covered, and there were some great local restaurants across the road.

After entering the terminal, it became obvious why they don’t want passengers waiting inside before check-in has opened. The check-in hall was basically a large tent. But the process was efficient, the staff were friendly and I was soon through immigration and security.

Once inside the main international departure terminal, I felt like I was in a local shopping centre. There was even a Hard Rock Café and a casino. You barely noticed that there happened to be planes outside, and I don’t mean that in a bad way!

The airport had functional Wi-Fi, air-conditioning and wasn’t crowded. Just beware that most of the shops only accept cash – although, like many stores in Paramaribo they would happily accept Surinamese dollars, US dollars or Euros.

Surinam Airways’ Sabaku Lounge is the only lounge available at this airport. Free entry is available to Business Class passengers flying Surinam Airways, but the lounge doesn’t accept Priority Pass and doesn’t offer complimentary access to Copa Airlines passengers. The lounge did look quite nice and anyone could purchase access at the door for USD40 (~AU$62), but I didn’t bother. Instead, I indulged in some delicious local food in the terminal.

The flight started boarding almost an hour before the scheduled departure time, starting with priority boarding. There was a separate “Prefer Access” boarding lane which I was entitled to use with Star Alliance Gold status, although there was only one person scanning boarding passes and they basically just ignored the Prefer Access lane.

The Hard Product

Similar to Virgin Australia, Copa Airlines exclusively flies Boeing 737s. It doesn’t have any proper long-haul flights (e.g. to Europe) but it does use its 737s on some long sectors. For example, Panama City-San Francisco is a similar length to Virgin Australia’s Cairns-Tokyo route.

This particular aircraft was a 12-year-old Boeing 737-800 with a Boeing Sky Interior. The Copa Airlines plane had pleasant mood lighting, large overhead lockers and fairly comfortable leather Economy seats with adjustable headrests.

The first four rows of seats, including row 8 where I was sitting, are “Premium Seats” with more legroom. Interestingly, the first row of Economy on this flight was mainly filled by uniformed Copa Airlines crew who appear to have operated the inbound flight to Paramaribo and were “deadheading” home.

Both the outside and the inside of the plane – and even the crew uniforms – reminded me of United Airlines. That’s not a coincidence: Copa Airlines used to be closely integrated with Continental Airlines, which later merged with United. United and Copa still enjoy a strong partnership to this day through their Star Alliance membership.

My seat had 34 inches of pitch, which was more than enough. It’s worth mentioning though that the standard seats also had reasonable legroom, with at least 31 inches of pitch in every row. That’s more legroom than Qantas offers on their Boeing 737s.

There were no seat-back in-flight entertainment screens, nor did Copa Airlines offer Wi-Fi or streaming entertainment on this aircraft. But there were TV screens that dropped down from the overhead panels to play the safety video and, during the flight, the first Harry Potter movie.

To watch the movie, you could plug your headphones (these were handed out for free) into the audio jack in the seat’s armrest. There were three audio channels available for Spanish, English and Portuguese.

Once the movie finished, there was no further entertainment available during the second half of the four-hour flight – other than the Panorama magazine in the seat pocket. However, I was thoroughly enjoying the view of the extended sunset out the window as we flew west.

The Soft Product

We departed slightly ahead of schedule. After take-off it was evident why Suriname is the world’s most forested nation.

Today’s flight had people of many different nationalities on board, travelling to many different places. I was stopping over in Panama but the vast majority of passengers were connecting onwards.

That’s basically Copa’s business model: To connect the north with the south of America via their strategically placed hub, right in between the two continents. It does this reliably and with relatively short connection times in many cases, owing to the airline’s clever use of scheduling banks.

In a way, you could say that Copa Airlines is the Emirates of the Americas. Well, except that they only have Boeing 737s, don’t have First Class, and Copa’s lounges aren’t anywhere near as spectacular. Perhaps “the Flydubai of the Americas” might be a better description.

Panama City’s Tocumen International Airport is designed for efficient connections. Connecting there is very easy, with no need to re-clear security or collect baggage.

Some airlines add a special tag to your luggage if you have a connecting flight. But so many of Copa’s passengers are connecting that they instead tag bags that are only flying as far as Panama City with a special blue “PTY” tag.

By the way, I had always thought that Copa Airlines, which literally means “Cup Airlines” in Spanish, was a reference to football. But, no, it turns out that Copa is actually just an acronym for Compañía Panameña de Aviación (Panama Air Company).

Anyway, back to the flight!

During the cruise, the flight attendants distributed complimentary hot meals and non-alcoholic drinks. They described the two meal options as “noodles with chicken” or “corn bread with chilli”. Like everyone else around me, I opted for the noodles. The meal also came with a slice of cake.

The food was nothing special and the noodles tasted quite salty. But it filled a gap and I’m glad Copa Airlines served something substantial to eat in Economy Class.

There were no additional snacks or alcoholic drinks available for purchase, and Copa Airlines did not provide any pillows, blankets or other noteworthy amenities.

The flight attendants were all pleasant and professional. All spoke both Spanish and English.

Matt Graham

The editor of Australian Frequent Flyer, Matt's passion for travel has taken him to over 80 countries… with the help of frequent flyer points, of course!
Matt's favourite destinations (so far) are Germany, Brazil & Kazakhstan. His interests include economics, aviation & foreign languages, and he has a soft spot for good food and red wine.

You can connect with Matt by posting on the Australian Frequent Flyer community forum and tagging @AFF Editor.