Avianca

SSA-SDU on Friday Jan 4. Brand new A320. Great IFE for a 1hr 40 min flight. Hot sandwiches. Good beverages. Smiles from the crew. Expensive ticket but much cheaper than the competition.

Flew JFK-BOG-GRU on an Avianca's A330 and other then the fantastic fare appearance of the aircraft and warm attitude of the crew it is not worth flying Business Class. The seat is extremely uncomfortable if you try to sleep and the lack of international standards in service makes you wonder why didn't you fly coach! Again the crew cannot be nicer but their disregard for the basic concepts of business class service could be amusing if they did not include things such as not picking up glasses before landing and the way they serve meals.

BSB-GRU in A320. No thrills reasonable legroom good individual IFE system for a domestic route. Would be a good option if the company had a more robust network and consistent and reliable services.

Cali-Bogota-Barcelona. Disappointed by Avianca this time. Check-in at Cali airport chaotic extremely slow service and employee at counter robotic. Changed our previous pre-selected seats without comment. Cali-Bogota delayed 30 minutes arrival at Bogota at domestic Puente Aereo. 20 mins waiting time for bus transfer to international terminal. Fortunately we had 3.5 hrs connecting time less is too tight! Long queues at emigration. Plane Bogota-Barcelona full. New A330-200 but not very well maintained - seats and carpet had stains trash in seat pocket. Some staff friendly others were not and uninterested. No help placing handbags in the bins. Inflight service mediocre. Food quality bad (chicken was dry and rice tasteless) only plastic cutlery. Beverage service average. Poor headphone quality and also uncomfortable so it was not a great entertainment experience. Recommend to bring own headphones. After meal service crew disappeared drinks only upon request during the night. Very bad breakfast before landing served in a hurry 1 hour prior to land coffee was a shame for a Colombian airline. Seats uncomfortable for such a long flight. Entertainment box under the seat took me precious legroom. Staff at de-boarding tired and not so friendly. All in all average experience imagined service and comfort would be better. Customer service and food quality and quantity should be improved.

Flew BOG-MAD and BCN-BOG Business cabin both ways on time excellent service by very nice flight attendants good food. Very satisfied by their quality.

JFK-BOG-Bucaramanga (round trip). Trips went fine with the exception of a 3 hr delay going from JFK-BOG and had to take the 5pm plane to Bucaramanga the trip back home was better than last year! Both flights on time food great and staff friendly and helpful!

BAQ-MEX. With one stop in BOG to change planes. A319 from Barranquilla (BAQ) to Bogotá (BOG). Quick flight nice service only beverages in that short flight. Arrived to Bogotá Puente Aéreo is a chaos. Connecting flight on time. Long queue in emigration but not so annoying. Staff friendly on gate. Inflight service attentive and nice. Lunch was delicious with a good selection of beverages and coffee. The only drawback was IFE not good sound. Seats must improve for a flight of 4 hours. Will use them again.

J Class flight BOG-BCN. New aircraft (A33-200) good seating although not lie-flat nice comforter but tiny economy class-like pillows. Crew helpful and attentive offered preflight drinks (a decent Chilean sparkling and coconut lemonade) good quality amenity and sleeping kits and food and beverage menu The only disappointment was food. Very poor sausage canapés and shrimp "ceviche" and as a main course a horrible dish of chicken legs in a kind of passion fruit sauce or a hard over-cooked pepper steak. Good beverage offer the wine list has improved. Overall a nice and very punctual flight.

We flew from Orlando to Rio de Janeiro with a change of planes in Bogota. In Orlando the business check in counter had no attendant so someone from the economy class came to assist us. We were also told that there was no business lounge in the terminal. Seats on the A319 did not recline and the food and beverage were of mediocre quality. We arrived in Bogota and the VIP business lounge was almost full. Very poor quality food being served and in the male toilets one was out of order and the other was filthy so I used the toilet outside the business lounge. The flight from Bogota to Rio was on the same kind of plane the A319: no decent reclining seats and the most annoying announcements that lasted all night long and did not allow you to sleep. They even woke us up in the middle of the night reminding us that you could not use mobile phones on the plane.

GIG-GRU: It's a shame Avianca aren't more of a presence in the Brazilian market; for this short hop I paid just over £25 one week before travel - far less than TAM Gol Webjet and Azul were all offering - and this included a 25kg piece of hold luggage plus food/drink on a flight little over 40 minutes. Possibly the fastest check-in security and boarding I've experienced and a more generous amount of legroom than other carriers. We got an old Fokker 100 on this route which despite showing a few signs of its age was very comfortable and smooth throughout. The cabin crew were all smiley and pleasant and served everyone promptly and we were reunited with our baggage all of 10 minutes after getting off the plane. A flight this long usually isn't worth writing about but if you're travelling domestically in Brazil check them out!