Copa Airlines operates around 90 aircrafts according to AirFleets.net. All of their planes are narrow body aircraft. They have typically been a great airline to fly to Central America but an airline to avoid for trips between North America and South America because you had to stop in Panama, potentially adding many hours on to your total trip time.
Copa Airlines is in the process of refreshing their fleet with new Boeing 737 MAX aircraft. They have 61 737 MAX planes on order and they just received their very first one. With the new planes there is a huge improvement in the business class as the new seats are fully lie flat vs recliners on all of their other planes.
The new Copa business class product is likely manufactured by B/E Aerospace and is similar to the Diamond Seat found aboard United Airlines and American Airlines transcontinental A321T business class. The seats, which Copa has branded as “Dreams” come with power outlets, a 16″ touch screen in-flight entertainment monitor, and recline into a flat-bed seat. The new product is set up as 4 rows in a 2-2 configuration for a total of 16 seats.
The bigger surprise comes in the back of the plane as Copa is introducing a new cabin that they are referring to as Economy Extra. In Economy Extra you will find 4 rows of 3-3 seats with up to 34″ of pitch with a 10″ in-flight entertainment screen. Economy Extra seats also come with priority boarding privileges.
Behind the new Economy Extra cabin is the regular economy cabin. The 126 seats are set up in the standard 3-3 configuration with USB outlets for each seat. The interesting thing to note here is that Copa decided to not have any entertainment screens for the regular economy seats. Economy passengers shouldn’t worry as Copa has a new entertainment streaming service so you can watch via your own device. The economy seats also come with a shelf for you to rest your entertainment device on.
The very first plane (registration HP-9901CMP) is set to fly to many US and international destinations over the coming weeks. According to Airways Magazine the plane should be flying the following route over the next several days:
CM393 Panama to Tampa departing 9:05AM arriving 1:30PM – September 20, 2018
CM394 Tampa to Panama departing 3:24PM arriving 5:28PM – September 20, 2018
CM427 Panama to Miami departing 6:38PM arriving 10:45PM – September 20, 2018
CM173 Miami to Panama departing 6:00AM arriving 8:10AM – September 21, 2018
CM360 Panama to Los Angeles departing 7:53AM arriving 12:45PM – September 22, 2018
CM362 Los Angeles to Panama departing 10:00 PM arriving 6:37AM (+1 day) – September 22, 2018
Eventually the plane will make its way to Orlando (MCO), New York (JFK), Boston (BOS), and Las Vegas (LAS) in November and December for what looks like one-off flights. For the time being this is the only Copa plane with flat beds. The Boeing delivery schedule doesn’t indicate any future frames are currently in production for Copa but I wouldn’t be surprised if that information isn’t the most up to date.
Will flat beds make you want to fly Copa from North America to South America?
All Images via Copa Airlines