Copa Airlines Boeing 737-800 Economy From Managua To San José

Before the flight/booking

The flight from Managua to San José was booked last minute, literally about three hours before the flight. Dreading a 12-hour bus ride from Managua to San José tomorrow, I decided to pull up Google Flights to see how much a flight would cost down to Costa Rica. I found fares on

Avianca

for $190 with a layover in San Salvador, which did not include a carry-on. To my surprise, there was a

Copa Airlines

flight.

The cash fare was about $250, which I did not want to pay, so I thought I would check how much the flight would cost in miles. On

United Airlines

, one of Copa’s Star Alliance partners, the flight was available for 12,500 miles + $67.31 in cash. I nearly had enough points in my Mileage Plus account for the flight but had to transfer 1,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards Points to my Mileage Plus account to make the booking.

Within seconds of booking, I had received an e-mail from United with my confirmation code, which I was able to put in the Copa app and locate my reservation. The process for going from one airline for booking to the other for travel was seamless. As the ticket was booked on United, I had to choose my seat on Copa after checking in.

If the seat map was any indication as to how full the flight would be, it seemed nearly empty. This leg was the first of the trip down to Panama, Copa’s home. Choosing my seat was easy and within minutes I had checked in and had a boarding pass that said I needed a document check. So when I arrived at the airport, I went straight to the check-in desks, which I usually avoid since I do not travel with checked baggage.

At the airport

I arrived at the airport at 14:07, and to my surprise, it was nearly empty. MGA is small, but I had not checked if there were many arrivals or departures around the time I arrived. Finding the Copa Airlines desk was easy, and I was the first person in line. When it came to my turn, I gave the employee my passport and was handed an immigration form to exit the country, the same one I filled out when crossing the border from Costa Rica.

In Managua, immigration comes before security, and at 14:16 I arrived at the checkpoint. By 14:21, I had been cleared through immigration and security and was on my way to tehe boarding area. No one had been in front of me at immigration or security, making the process very fast.

Right when I reached the top of the escalator, which put me at the boarding area, my plane was pulling into our gate, number 5. As we still had a considerable amount of time, I took a quick walk around the, terminal, which to be honest, felt more like a bus station than an airport. Even landside, there were so many vendors that it did not feel like a typical terminal.

The gate area was quite small and had a mixture of different chair types. Either the AC was broken in the terminal or it does not have AC as there were several coolers placed in the gate area to help circulate air. Two things that were notably missing were free WiFi and power. Notable, none of the Copa flights I have been on had WiFi, but they did have a network to connect to and use inflight entertainment through the airline’s portals. This aircraft did not.

Boarding began at 15:07, 37 minutes behind schedule, which did not matter as the flight was nearly empty. At 15:36, the purser made an announcement and told the crew to arm their doors, and within two minutes, we were pushing back from our gate. Despite boarding late, we pushed back from our gate 11 minutes ahead of schedule. We took off at 15:49, right when we were scheduled to push back.

In the air

According to the captain, our flight would take 48 minutes and we would climb to 27,000 feet. The views departing Managua were incredible. As it is the rainy season, everything is super green and lush. Just a few minutes after takeoff, I was able to spot Vulcan Masaya, one of Nicaragua’s several volcanoes.

A few minutes later, we flew over Laguna de Apoyo, located between Vulcan Masaya and Vulcan Mombacho. Because of the length of the flight, I was unsure if there would be any service, and to my surprise, within nine minutes of takeoff, the flight attendants began their service.

We were served casava chips and were offered a selection of beverages, which included juice, soda, water, and coffee. I have flown on Copa several times this year, and every time I do, I ask for the Guayaba-Piña (guava-pineapple) juice. So that was our limited inflight service, which was nice because I did not even expect it.

The Boeing 737-800 offered what seemed to be plenty of legroom, more than normal. The 14-year-old interior appeared to be what it was when it came from the factory, aside from a potential seat leather change. The seatbacks did not include inflight entertainment screens (IFE) or in-seat power but did have buttons on the armrests to change the channel and control the volume.

By 16:12, the captain came on and announced that we were beginning our descent and told the cabin crew to prepare for landing. After a mostly sunny flight, as we began to descend into San Jose, we flew through a lot of clouds, and it was very overcast. By 16:29, we were on the ground in San Jose.

Overall

The flight from Managua to San José went smoothly, and the service was on par with everything I had experienced with Copa before. In a pinch, it was a much better mileage redemption to fly with Copa than to go with Avianca up to San Salvador and then back down to San José. Given the opportunity, I would choose Copa to hop between the two countries again.