I've played the waiting game with COPA a number of times. I usually lose. There have been a couple of times where the price dropped when the flight was a few days away (I assume because it was almost empty), but that does not happen often.

You cannot tell how full the plane is from the seat map because many, if not most, COPA fliers do not select seats until check in.

I use Flightstats to check inventory availability:

http://www.flightstats.com/go/Flight...vailability.do

Just for the fun of it, you might want to check out their round trip pricing. I have found that COPA tends to charge a hefty premium for a one-way. You can always blow off the return.