Avianca is the largest airline in Colombia, and operates a near-monopoly on many routes. Supposedly it is owned by a Brazililan firm, and when I talk to Colombians I work with about how badly their service sucks, they always say something to the effect of: “Oh, you should have seen it five years ago. The improvements are amazing.”
The thing is, once you make it to the plane, everything is wonderful. It’s the getting there that is the problem. Begin with the website. I actually know the guy who wrote the code for the website, and he’s very frustrated that Avianca won’t keep in maintained. On any given day, you simply cannot buy a ticket online, and lots of times can’t even follow through to the price if you are checking flights. It just goes in circles. Not to mention that the information is frustratingly arranged, so that lots of times you can’t get answers.
If you can manage to make a reservation online, or by phone, don’t take credit cards there; they want you to come to the office to pay and then charge you a service charge for that. Travel agents aren’t paid commissions anymore by Avianca, so the government allows them to charge a surcharge, so Avianca thinks it too is entitled to the surcharge.
All this is baby stuff compared to what happens when you get to the airport. If leaving the country, you pay a tax, and if paying by credit card, the agent has to go somewhere else to process that. Then, if you don’t have your printed out documentation of your ticket, signed, you are NOT getting on the flight, even if it is an eticket and even if they have you in their computer reservation list, as having paid for a ticket.
But wait, did you call the day before to confirm your flight? If not, even with a paid for ticket, your seat is given away. Sorry, sir. And there’s a very good chance the time of the flight has been changed. I once had a ticket to fly to Ft. Lauderdale at 4:00PM, and they changed the flight to 11:00AM. When I called at 10:00PM the night before to confirm, I got that info. There should be a law, no? And a two hour delay is pretty much standard. Maybe the pilot was having a late lunch somewhere.
But, once on the plane, the service is going to be better than what you are used to on US airlines, and also the food will be higher quality. I think that in Colombia they still just flight attendants by weight and appearance, because you won’t find overweight ones, or unattractive ones, or old ones anywhere. You get a hot napkin to clean up with before eating. Can you imagine that?
I have stopped using Avianca to fly to the US because there’s just wayyyyyy too much potential for problems. If their mistake causes you to lose a few hours or miss your flight, you are just supposed to deal with that and be thankful if you get to your destination at all.
For domestic flights, though, there’s often not much choice (or if there is choice, it’s Aerorepublica, which is worse). If you are flying out on a puente, there’s a good chance you won’t make it when planned. I have seen near-riots at Puente Aereo (the terminal for domestic Avianca flights) where even the willing-to-take-shit Colombians get out of sorts. Once I and two friends got bumped and had to fly out two hours later, and they were supposed to owe us each free domestic tickets for that. So the story changed, and they said our flight was cancelled and a new one scheduled. Yeah.
A friend of mine recently tried flying from NYC to Bogota on Avianca. With a fully booked and overbooked and triply booked flight, he was booted, and had to fly instead to Panama. There he spent the night, paying for his own hotel, and the next day when there were no flights to Bogota available, was sent to Quito, Ecuador. Here he had to spend the night, but could not leave the airport because he lacked the required documentation, given that Ecuador was not part of his travel plans. So, he did arrive in Bogota, three days later.
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