Copa Meltdown
 

If anyone is flying Copa to or through PTY, be aware that Copa is experiencing total meltdown. Virtually all flights are cancelled or substantially delayed. Note that the "flight information" on Copa's website is NOT ACCURATE. They are showing most everything as on time, but a quick check of FlightAware for the three hours past shows that almost everything out of PTY has been delayed/cancelled. This is apparently a Copa systems failure and has been going on for at least a day now.

http://i1278.photobucket.com/albums/...ps9e1dbb03.jpg

I've rerouted on UA through Bogota to avoid this disaster.

Copa Meltdown
 

I was stuck in PTY yesterday trying to get back to LAX on CM and it wasn't pretty. No one was able to offer a good explanation or communication of what was happening other than "computer issues" with essentially all CM flights going out 5-8 hours late. All AA and UA flights were unaffected.

I was also in PTY on Saturday after flying in from EZE. I was to connect to IAD but 30 minutes turned into an hour and so on. Virtually no information at all until around 11:45 they told all gates at the same time that you could get a meal for $10 just by showing your boarding pass at the food court. That nearly turned into a stampede as the escalator kept pushing more people up but nowhere for anyone to get to when at the top.

I managed to get on a virtually empty PTY-IAH and still made it home same day, but it was rough. My IAD flight ended up leaving 5 hours late. Major thanks to the Copa employee that helped me at the club to get reticketed and called the United gate for me to check in past the deadline.

Horrible communication from Copa though. There were no announcements at the gate, and the only thing we were told at one point was "we'll be in the air in no more than 45 minutes." Everything was mismanaged.

Quick couple questions...

I'm flying SCL-PTY-LAX in a couple days on Copa. Has this problem been resolved?

If the problem is ongoing, will Copa reroute me via UA/someone else (I don't think UA flies out of SCL).?

If I end up on TAM/Air Canada/some other *A carrier can I still get original routing credit and lifetime flight miles (Copa miles count toward UA lifetime miles)?

Here is the latest from the Copa website:

http://www.copaair.com/sites/cc/en/n...1-10-2013.aspx

Looks to be normalizing but might be good to check it tomorrow and reschedule if needed.