Okay I may have lied about posting trip reports to NEW destinations this year and not revisiting old ones like remember when I said I wouldn’t be going back to Cali any time soon? Well I maybe have lied about that 🤭 but trust me, I didn’t plan this at all so here what happened, a friend of mine wanted to get her teeth done but she didn’t know any good dentists in the area and she saw all over TikTok about dentists in Cali, Colombia 🇨🇴 and she’s also into Colombian culture so she asked me to hook her up with my cousin who owns a dentist office right in the center of the city however. She doesn’t feel safe in Cali and I don’t blame her since crime has unfortunately gone up over there so I offered to come along and she accepted it and since this is another weekend trip I though to myself,
“Why not do another comparison trip?”
I mean my trips to Atlanta 🏙️🍑 back in June 2023 and my San Juan, Puerto Rico 🇵🇷🏝️ trip where I compared Spirit to Frontier and JetBlue to Southwest respectively were pretty interesting since I could’ve just took American Airlines each time but decided not to just to mix things up so here we are! Doing another comparison. At first I was gonna compare Spirit to AA but it wouldn’t be fair since 1. Spirit is an ultra low cost carrier and 2nd, they fly out of FLL and I wanted to depart and arrive at the same airport but then I remembered Avianca, Colombia’s flag carrier and the 2nd oldest airline offers this flight from Miami 🏝️😎 just like AA and on a similar aircraft so I picked that option so the plan is today to fly from MIA → CLO with Avianca on the Airbus A320 and on Sunday return to the 305 🏝️😎 with AA on the Boeing 737-800. I woke up not too early as this was an afternoon departure, picked up my friend and made our way down to MIA to get this weekend trip and comparison started!
Flight Info
Origin: Miami Intl 🇺🇸 ( KMIA )
Destination: Alfonso Bonilla Aragon Intl 🇨🇴 ( SKCL )
Flight Time: 3:11
Airbus A320-200 ( Avianca )
Server: Expert
I honestly have no clue what was I most excited for, MIAs south terminal concourse J since this is honestly my favorite terminal here coming from a frequent AA flyer and using the north terminal concourse D I mean this is the international terminal so the city does have to show a good impression to foreign visitors. And why else was I excited? Well I haven’t flown Avianca in YEARS and now I finally get to fly my countries flag carrier after so long so after checking in, security and waking through this MAGNIFICENT 🤩 concourse J, welcome to gate J11 where our A320 hosting our flight to el Valle is waiting! Had a small lunch break and had very good Cuban sandwiches 😋🥪🇨🇺 since I don’t think they’ll serve anything but let’s just board!
Now I have to say this, I’m not the biggest fan of Avianca’s hard product especially after seeing their previous one, I feel like the pandemic really hurt the airline and it’s showing as there’s TONs of seats but it is pretty cramped but at least the seats looked clean eh? 🧼 out view was also really nice and I really like this Miami sign on the terminal but we were on time so let’s be on time ourselves!
Despite the south terminal being on the south side of the airport closer to runway 09, we taxied ACROSS the airport to RWY 8R for our departure, strange I was looking forward for a RWY 09 departure but as long as we fly over downtown Miami 🏝️😎 on take off, it’s fine!
Speaking of departing MIA, we flew over downtown as usual but things were a bit strange so when we were taking off, we were climbing REALLY STEEP like 4,000fpm so we we ended up flying over downtown like at 3,700 or even 4,000ft while normally we’d be at like 2,300ft or something by this point strange but anyways, goodbye Miami 👋🏝️😎 see you Sunday!
Here we are at FL370 making out way across Cuba 🇨🇺 on our way down to Colombia 🇨🇴 aboard Colombia’s flag carrier so let’s get into AV’s soft product which spoiler alert, isn’t any better from their hard product maybe even worse. So the crew came around with snacks and beverages with one twist.
NOTHING WAS FREE
Everything ( even water ) costed money but I wanted to test if Colombia’s flag carrier can provide the SAME quality Coffee ☕️ and bread 🥖 as they do on the ground in Colombia 🇨🇴 so I bought a coffee with cream and sugar along with a piece of bread for like $4 so pricing isn’t bad and now how was it? well.
It was better than I what I thought it was gonna be obviously nothing like they would be on the ground but still better than other airlines and this crew was kinda funny so 3 stars for them ⭐️⭐️⭐️ and internet access was free of cost!
Because there wasn’t any. Luckily there was streaming entertainment since this plane isn’t equipped with PTVs so I just watched movies on there.
Greeting Jamaica! 🇯🇲 and I have one question, AA and AV’s winglets look similar with their logos on it but who’s is better? Let me know!
Colombia in the horizon just in time as the sun was beginning to set so our descent into Cali was imminent.
As we are making that final right base turn for RWY 02 at CLO I’d like to say that this turn scared my friend, she isn’t a frequent flyer by any means so she kinda gets scared about flying so I simply told her to not watch Mayday Air Disaster especially the episode “Lost” and she didn’t so that’s good! 👍 but anyways back to the story.
TOUCHDOWN!! Welcome for the first and most likely last time in 2024 to Alfonso Bonilla Aragon International Airport so onto the conclusion. Overall, I hate being negative but Avianca’s product wasn’t that good to be honest the hard and tight seats, lack of PTVs, internet and the fact that snacks and drinks aren’t provided for free really sucks. Especially since you can book the same flight on AA for like an extra $40 right now and get snacks and drinks provided along with internet access although the latter isn’t free the only advantages AV had was the variety of items on the buy onboard menu similar to Ryanair, the very good and cozy aesthetic of the cabin with that red mood lighting and its crew which could be totally different as one flight you’ll have a very friendly crew and the next ones will be really nasty but it really sucks to say this since it’s my countries FLAG CARRIER so overall Avianca scores an average maybe below average.
Our parking spot this evening at CLO’s international terminal was gate D16 which sadly didn’t provide the best view of the Avianca A320 who brought us in from the 305 🏝️😎 passport control 🛂 didn’t take too long but it wasn’t quick either more like in the middle. As this was a weekend trip we didn’t check in any bags so as soon as we cleared customs we were off to a friends apartment down in Pance to leave our belongings before going out to dinner somewhere in Cali. Thanks for joining me on this flight stay tuned to see how American Airlines does and as always between now and the next time, see you in the sky! 😉👋