Avianca

My bid to travel business class with Avianca from Mexico City to Bogota was accepted but service was so incredibly indifferent and below what I expected that I will not make a bid for the return journey. I was in row 2 and my choice of lunch from three options has already finished. Most in the cabin were upgraded at the gate (it was very obvious). In the ends the person next door gave me his choice as I could not eat anything else. It was incredibly awful, a rubbery chicken with no taste. Seat space was very good (the old business). Selection of wine was well below standard with very cheap Chilean wines. Flight attendants were friendly but never smiled and they did not offer to store jackets and coats. Check in was friendly and fast and boarding was orderly. A good service let down by the incredibly bad food.

Los Angeles to San Pedro Sula via San Salvador with Avianca. This airline would rather fly with empty seats than make a satisfied and potentially repeat customer. My connecting flight came in quite a bit earlier than expected, leaving me with 5 hours to kill at a tiny airport. I thought I might be in luck when I learned that there was an earlier flight, but when I asked them if I could standby on the earlier flight they told me that it would cost me $200. Even at the very end of boarding, when it became apparent hat there were quite a number of empty seats, they remained adamant that I would either have to pay or to wait five hours. It's this kind of interaction that makes me lose faith in humanity. I'll never fly with them again.

Avianca offered a good deal on flying to Colombia, where several friends of mine live, so I decided to take the deal. The process of buying the tickets was somewhat difficult as their website was having problems and when I called there was a good deal of confusion and they had to call me back to let me know they would call me back again. Several times, but in the end I got the deal so no complaints. I am tall (just over 2m) and the seats are small, the head rests are against my shoulder blades and very uncomfortable. There was good in flight service for what it was and the entertainment was not bad, but whenever their was an announcement my movie would switch to spanish (I prefer English) and there was no way to fix it without restarting he movie and slowly forwarding to where I was. This happened three times and I decided to just listen to music on my phone. My connecting flight from Bogota to Armeria was odd because the airport and Avianca did not know where the plane was. There was about 40 of us being led around the airport until they found it on the otherwise of the airport, at this point I will note that besides my LAX flight each plane left and arrived and hour late, I am not sure Avianca is to blame for the confusion in Bogota though. My trip got cut short and I had to change my return flight, after explaining my situation Avianca offered to nullify the fee for changing flights which was awesome. Except that they did not and charged me the fee anyway. My return flight was three flights total, all of which I checked into window seats for, there was a problem and my itinerary was changed to four seperate flights none of which I was given window seats for anymore and was instead in middle seats each time, the Avianca staff member that changed my flights guaranteed me that they were still Windows seats. All in all I was not impressed with this airline and would not fly with them again.

Palonegro to Medellin via Bogota. Avianca is a leading airline in the region and flying is a top-notch experience. Ground personnel courteous and helpful, organised boarding process, clean, modern and tidy airplanes with AVOD catering to all tastes with programming offered in English, Spanish and Potuguese. Departures and arrivals quite punctual as was luggage delivery. Avianca is costly to be honest, but some good deals can be found and it's better to pay for a good service.

All flights from Madrid to Lima via Bogota were on new aircrafts and all flights were on time. Seats were very comfortable with adequate leg room. Service was great with 2 servings of food and full service of drinks (juices, beers, alcoholic). You had to ask for salt and pepper? During the flight there were snacks, crackers and drinks available in the galleys. Staff were great, professional and some fluent in English. IFE was good but from the 58 movies most of them were outdated. On IFE there was an option were you could see the offered Menu, also you could see the connected gates on arrival (1 hour before arrival). Great flight experience.

Los Angeles to Lima via Bogota with Avianca. The staff were very polite and helpful. They greeted and asked us if we were okay. The A330 was a great aircraft that supplied the traveler with entertainment and comfort. The meals were better than I expected, and the snacks hit the spot. My only complain would be that the aircraft didn't provide wifi service, other than that it was a great trip.

I had a flight from Montevideo to Cuzco and although I arrived several hours early to my flight, I missed my plane thanks to front-desk clerks. They had me wait for a ridiculous amount of time to "double check on info" and by the time they were done checking (not sure what exactly they needed to check) they decided I couldn't board their plane. I still had an hour to board but for some odd reason they didn't let me through. Rescheduling my flight was an even bigger nightmare. I had to pay a $120 penalty fee and an extra $350 fee for a new flight. Getting my money back was impossible and anytime I mentioned that I missed my flight due to Avianca employees I was told that there was nothing they could do about my situation. I never got a proper apology from the airline.

I flew this new Avianca Boeing 787 from to Buenos-Aires to Bogota. The flight was amazing. The food should have been warmer was the only downside. Coffee was great as expected. The seats were comfortable and the IFE interface was friendly. The crew were friendly even the ground staff.

It's no coincidence. I travel 100,000 miles through Star Alliance by Air Canada and United but every time I use Avianca during a connection in South America, the experience is terrible. On this particular flight, despite my status and booking at the first class counter they assigned me a middle seat. When I realized, already onboard, the flight attendant ask for my boarding pass to talk to the supervisor or people on ground to see what they can do. 15 minutes later when they where closing the door I asked her about the status. Surprise surprise, she had not talked to anyone, just walked away with my boarding pass. It is always the same experience. They look and act like friendly but the outcome of the service is in a word terrible.

I had the most appalling experience with Avianca. I booked an airfare that simply got cancelled without notification. I arrived at the airport on the day of the flight to find out that my ticket was cancelled - 2 hours before departure! The Avianca customer service could not care less about the cancellation (it seems this is the way they regularly operate). They simply advised me to buy another plane ticket - with a price premium for buying it 2 hours before the flight - of course! This seems surreal to me: in 2015, not even a notification of cancellation? I am still fighting to get my money back on the price difference.