Uneventful flight to Panama
sduford on Aug 31 2008 at 8:19 am | Filed under: Panama, Travel
Our flight down to Panama went very well. I had booked tickets with Mexicana and I was a bit nervous that it could turn into a horrible flight, but we were rather positively surprised! When I booked my tickets from Toronto to Panama City, we had a choice of American Airlines through Miami, but that was $1100 per person. Then there was Continental via Newark, but that was $880 p.p. and flying through the New York area is usually not a pleasant experience. Mexicana was only $600 p.p. with a connection in Mexico City.This trip also provided the shortest stop-over at 2 hours.
Things didn’t start too well when we showed up at the Toronto airport for check-in and found out that we were not sitting together and both had middle seats! I complained and the ticket agent said she was sorry but this was a very full flight and those seats were assigned a long time ago. I complained that I had booked these seats 2 months ago and wasn’t given the chance to pick seats even back then. She said that was because this is the high season (uh???). She could tell I was getting pretty upset and finally volunteered to put us in the exit row if we didn’t mind. This is great as you get about twice the normal amount of leg room! But to my surprise, once we boarded the plane I noticed that the flight was far from full and I counted no less than 6 rows with two seats together! So the girl at the counter was obviously playing games with me, or simply unwilling to make a tiny effort to help us.
Anyway, after that everything went smoothly. The plane was a brand spanking new Airbus 319, clean as a whistle, and with an entertainment system (some of Continental’s airplanes are not so equipped!). The staff was very friendly and all smiles, and the meal (yes, I said meal) was excellent. I was still a little aprehensive about how a stop-over in Mexico City was going to go, but it went pretty good. The Mexico City Airport is huge and like so many others it looks like a giant shopping mall. We were not supposed to have to go through customs and security but took a wrong turn (the signage is awful) and ended up doing just that. Still, there were surprisingly no lineup and we had plenty of time to look around.
The second leg was also in a brand new A319 and we also had a good meal. We arrived in Panama City on time and I must say that this was our best flight to Panama so far, much better than either Continental or American. So two thumbs-up for Mexicana!
