Avianca

Madrid-Bogota return (connecting to Etihad)- 787. Good seat comfort and entertainment. Food and service reasonable. Significantly improved check-in experience at Bogota compared to a few years ago.

A company’s character is defined by how it runs its business when its customers need it the most.

My review is based on one such experience wherein I got injured while on vacation in Machu Pichhu. Except for Avianca, all other companies I had to deal with due to the injury were a flat disappointment. Here’s what I loved about Avianca.

– The patience with which customer service talks to you, even in repeat calls, different questions, long conversations, etc. Also, in about 15 calls only one I had to wait in queue for 2 minutes, a welcome change after dealing with customer service centers in USA where 20 minutes of wait times are a norm.
– The consideration they gave to me and my wife after knowing that I am injured and need to go back to hometown to get treatment due to my medical history is commendable. They booked us on next morning flights, with somebody helping us through every step at the airport.
– They gave us VIP lounge free for our long layover in El Savador.

It was surreal to see how much they cared. I would love to fly Avianca in future with the confidence that if things go sideways, there is somebody who cares.

OK, I get it, people are more likely to write a review after a negative experience than a good one. But these 1-star reviews are just not fair. I’ve been flying Avianca (and Taca before the acquisition) for ten years between Central and North America, and I’ve also flown various USA-based carriers. Avianca is just a better choice. They simply understand the market and the flyers on these routes better. The staff are super helpful especially to all, they are never judgmental with inexperienced fliers, of which they get a lot. The planes are clean. Over ten years I have had two badly delayed flights (both recent, interestingly), but more often they are actually early. Over ten years they have never failed to get our luggage on our flight, and over the same period American has left us bag-less twice. On the negative side, the entertainment options on the Airbuses are getting a bit long in the tooth. There are rumors that the airline is for sale and that Continental is interested, which may explain some of the apparently aging fleet. I hope not. Overall, I recommend Avianca for any travel to Central or South America.

EDITORS COMMENT: We agree with you!

Our first and last time with Avianca.
We made our biggest mistake of our holidays flying Avianca this December 2016. We booked London-Bogota on the 14th and returning on the 30th. Both trips scheduled overnight with dinner and breakfast at the beginning and end of the fly respectively with sleeping time most of the fly.
1- We suffered a cancelation on the way out trip (London-Bogota) that cost us the lost of a day in our holidays (trip already planed).
2- Quality of the food very poor.
3- Staff in the offices of the airports and during the flies very unpleasant and no helpful at all.
4- Customer services at the www.avianca.com very deceptive and misleading us with excuses (poor weather, mechanic defaults in the airport and unknown objects damaging the airplane), all external reasons to avoid responsibilities for claims/compensations.
En conclusion, we are going to stay away from Avianca and will advise anyone there to do the same. Avianca needs to pay the consequences of abusing passengers and continuing offering deploring services in the aviation industry. We have deployed a boycott against Avianca and this way force Avianca to reconsiders its services or go out of business. The

Avianca is the WORST airline company! Do NOT FLY AVIANCA!!! Our trip started by our first flight being 3 hours delayed, which made us miss our connecting flight. We had to stand at the desk with them trying to figure out a different way for us to get where we needed to go for 3.5 hours!!! They for some reason took us off of our return flight (mistake), then could not get us back on to it…which is why it took 3.5 hours to fix their mistake. We arrived on our vacation in Peru a day late thanks to Avianca. We had to stay the night in San Salvador. We still had to pay for our hotel in Peru that we had to miss out on since we arrived a day late. Nightmare getting to Peru from Houston. Now, we are in Cusco, Peru trying to fly to Lima, Peru. We arrived at the airport over 2 hours early. We stood in line until it was time to board our flight. My husband tried calling to see if they’d be able to put us on a different flight since they had 2 people working for about 80 people in line. They said all flights were booked. Obviously, we missed our flight after standing in line for over two hours with barely moving at all. But, they couldn’t do anything for us… of course. We then had to fork