The Copa Club is best described as a lounge that is torn between being a lounge for business class customers and Priority Pass guests, and leaves us wanting more.

This lounge visit occurred in November 2024.

View other posts in this series:

• Trip Introduction: Thankful in The Bahamas
• WOW: Delta One Lounge LAX is Incredible
• Review: Delta One 767-300ER LAX-JFK
• Review: Delta One Lounge JFK
• Fun in the Sun: A Review of Grand Hyatt Baha Mar
• Grand Hyatt Baha Mar – Breakfast Restaurants
• Grand Hyatt Baha Mar – Dinner Restaurants
• Grand Hyatt Baha Mar – Activities
• Grand Hyatt Baha Mar – Pools and Beach
• Wet and Wild Excitement: Baha Bay Water Park
• Grand Hyatt Baha Mar Thanksgiving Activities
• Review: Copa Airlines 737-800 Business Class NAS-PTY
• Review: Copa Club PTY Terminal 2 (this post)
• Review: Copa Airlines 737-MAX 9 Business Class PTY-LAX

Location

There is a Copa Club located in both Terminal 1 and Terminal 2 at Panama PTY airport. We went to the lounge found in Terminal 2 since it was right next to the gate for our flight to LAX. If you’re coming to the airport from the city, it’s just past the immigration counter. If you’re transiting from another flight, just follow the signs for the VIP Room.

We arrived at Terminal 1 and thankfully it was painless changing terminals–there is no immigration or security to clear–making this a pretty easy airport for connections.

Naturally, Char wanted to stop along the way to pose with the various Christmas decorations found throughout the terminal.

Access

There are several ways to gain access to the Copa Club at PTY:

• Business class customers — How we entered for this visit.
• International first class customers on a Star Alliance flight plus one guest
• Copa elite members — Gold elites get access plus one guest. Platinum and Presidential elites get access plus one guest or immediate family members.
• Star Alliance Gold status — The traveling passenger must be on a Star Alliance flight. One guest is allowed at no additional charge.
• United Club members plus one guest
• KLM and Air France Gold elite members and above traveling on KLM or Air France
• Iberia Plus Elite members and above traveling on Iberia
• Priority Pass or Lounge Key members, limited to 3 hours before flight
• Diners Club or Lounge Pass members, limited to 3 hours before flight
• Single-use day passes are available for $50US each

There are a lot of eligible guests who can come in, particularly all the Priority Pass guests. In the event the lines get too long, those eligible based on flying Copa (either elite status or class of service) get a separate line from everyone else. That didn’t matter in our case since there were no lines to get in.

Seating

Inside the Terminal 2 lounge, you’ll find enough seating for just over 400 people, making this a fairly large lounge. There was a variety of seating available, including plenty of spots for parties of 2 or 4.

There was a small “outdoor” section where there was no roof over the lounge and you could hear all the boarding announcements and noise from the terminal below.

And there was plenty of seating by the bar and food station. We ended up camping out in this area.

Food

So… this is it. The entire lounge full of potentially 400 people get this one place to fill up on food. Normally I’m used to lounges of this size having a couple of spots for people to fill up. Instead, there is a very limited offering that is repeated–so you’ll see two steam trays for each of the items below. A bit more variety would have been appreciated.

First, there was a rice salad, some onion dip, and eggplant with vinaigrette.

There is also some toasted (but cold) bread to pair up with your dip.

A total of four trays of a red sauce pasta.

And a choice of two desserts: orange cake or a fried guava roll.

And that was it for the food! Hope you didn’t come here hungry as the offering was about on par with the typical US-based Priority Pass lounge. Perhaps that’s why this one also participates in Priority Pass?

In terms of drinks, you have your choice of the soda machine, a Nescafe machine, or the bar. Yes, there is a mixed nut/pretzel mix you can request from the bartender, but otherwise he has no other hidden food there.

Family Room

One of the nicer features of the lounge is the existence of a true family room inside the club. I always like when lounges cater to children. I’d imagine solo passengers would also like it given it will corral the kids into an enclosed space that has excellent sound insulation.

To get in and out of the room, you’ll need to wave your hand by the sensor.

Once inside, you’ll find it fairly bare, with a few tables designed for kids and two TVs mounted into the walls. While we were there, one TV was playing Nickelodeon and the other was playing Disney Junior, with voices in Spanish of course. I do like making the kids watch shows in a different language.

Just note the rules of this lounge. There is no eating or drinking allowed inside and you’re not allowed to sleep. But other than that, let your kids enjoy the space.

Other Amenities

When you enter the lounge, you’ll find a small directory that will lead you around. I’ll admit that I didn’t get a chance to take pictures of the TV room or the Quiet Room as they were fully occupied and I didn’t feel comfortable taking pictures.

Just inside the entrance is a help desk, which I imagine is for assistance with flight disruptions.

There’s also a luggage storage room, but note that no employee watches over the items so you’re going to have to trust that no one accidentally (or purposely) takes your belongings.

There is a printer and computer available if you need them.

And what looked to be an office building in case you wanted some quiet space to work.

We Left Hungry…

So… we did a thing. We left the Copa Club well in advance of our flight home to go into the terminal to eat. You could actually see the food court across the way while in the Copa Club and it clearly teased us a little too much. Thankfully, the airport has plenty of options if you’re looking for food and, yes, everything was priced in US dollars.

We ended up ordering a personal cheese pizza at Pizza Stop, which wasn’t anything special but it hit the spot. Despite it being just a personal size, it was large enough to function as a snack to top us off until dinner time on the flight.

If we had more time, we would have checked out Guy Fieri’s Flavortown Kitchen, which was closer to the transition between Terminals 1 and 2.

Recommendation: Don’t go out of your way

I have two viewpoints for this lounge. The first is how the lounge doesn’t hold up as a business class lounge. Copa’s business is all focused around connections given it is in a unique position sitting on the border of North and South America. There are going to be a lot of business class passengers eligible to use this lounge, so it would have been nice to have more variety in the food offered to help feed the masses, though perhaps it’s not all that surprising that food isn’t a focus for the airline after the flight we just came off of. Leaving the lounge to go eat elsewhere was a first for us. I think having the family room is a benefit, and the decor and features of the lounge are fine enough. If they improve the catering, I think this would be a solid business class lounge.

On the flipside, let me compare it to other Priority Pass lounges. I think the Copa Club generally fares well against many within the Americas. I find the focus of Priority Pass lounges is mainly to collect admission fees and not give much in terms of the quality of food and drinks as it’s the only way for these lounges to make a profit (airlines imbed the cost of running a lounge in the flight tickets they sell). If you have Priority Pass and frequent those lounges, go ahead and check it out and you might come away thinking it’s not so bad. But we were here as a business class guest and so my main opinion isn’t shaped by how it looks for a Priority Pass guest.

Certainly, don’t spend money here paying for a day pass. Your money is much better spent buying food in the terminal (and I found some stores selling cheap alcoholic mixed drinks just outside the lounge).

How do you feel about the Copa Club at PTY Terminal 2?