Avianca Reviews 1,801

awful company, staff is rude lack of knowledge. thus company cancelled my flight without notice ay the airport 3 hours delayed nearly miss my connexion when i complained the didn't care. horrendous food on the pkane no choices for people with alergies or intlerances. worst airline in america. when try to complain website doesn't work but i am not surprised. ne er again i will usr this shit airline. don't bother use a different company to fly to Colombia. Bogota Airport is a a total mess.

I wanted to leave zero stars but there isn't. If there is one company you should never fly is Avianca. Worst service ever. Uncomfortable seats that do not recline, priority boarding that you pay extra that you may lose because their flights to Bogota arrive late, for the price you pay they don't give you even a complimentary drink on a 5 hour flight, their flight schedules are a disaster, you never know if you will get on the connection flight because their flights leave late, arrive late. I lost two of my 4 priority boardings. Just take this company out of your mind. You'll regret it if you fly them.

My luggage was lost for 4 days during a business trip. During this time, I had to buy clothes and essential hygiene items out of my own pocket in order to attend professional meetings.

Although I submitted all required documentation and receipts through Avianca’s official channels, my compensation request was refused without any meaningful explanation. Communication was slow, fragmented, and ultimately unhelpful. WhatsApp support led nowhere, and there was no clear escalation path.

Losing luggage can happen — but how an airline handles the situation defines the quality of its service. In this case, Avianca showed zero customer care, zero accountability, and no understanding of real-life consequences, especially for business travelers.

This experience caused unnecessary stress, wasted time, and financial loss. Based on this experience, I cannot trust Avianca to handle even basic service recovery when things go wrong.

I strongly do not recommend this airline.

Avoid this airline wherever possible they charge extortionate prices. £600 for a one-way flight from Bogota to La Paz and the they still charge you £50 extra for a carry on bag. Cost less to fly back to the UK.
Also they cheap out on their landing take off and landing slots so be prepared that every flight you take with the will land at an inconvenient time. Always land in the early hours of the morning never during the day.

i had book bussines class ticket from BCN to BOG
service in flight: 0/10
Comfort of the seat: 7/10
seat TV: 4/10
food 2/10
customer service:0/10

They send an extremely amount of annoying emails about all their marketing activities and you can't unsubscribe. They don't respond to any form of communication. If you ask to unsubscribe, they send you the same email again. Very childish and unprofessional.

My girl was travelling to Nicaragua. Boarding staff in Miami very rudes and making fun of people in spanish when they think you don’t understand. Miss flight because taking a lot of time to charge some passengers extra luggage fees. Asking for new documents even if it was a layover. No help at all. Don’t fly with that company you will regret it!

This is an awful airline. The seats are very small and they are so close to each other making them very uncomfortable even for small people.

They don't even give you water in the plane. They are always delayed, they overbook seats and they have a very bad customer service.

If you are traveling inside Colombia, they will find a way to blame someone else for their mistakes so they don't have to compensate anyone.

Awful airline and service.

Booked a flex ticket. Tried to change online and the website didn't work. Called the call center and went round and round in circles with friendly but ultimately very ineffective service. Ended up on the original flight with no assigned seats (which had been previously paid for).

Do your job correctly

On December 20th, on flight AV 268 from Medellin to Cancun, I saw cabin crew setting up a table and drinking wine for the first time in my life.

I booked a Flex ticket with Avianca to give myself flexibility in changing my flight - only to find out it’s impossible to make changes through their site, WhatsApp bot, or phone system. Every support channel loops endlessly or refers me back to a system that doesn’t work.

Their own fare rules clearly state that Flex tickets allow itinerary changes, yet the site says my booking “doesn’t allow changes through avianca.com.” I’m flying soon and need to change my ticket - where is the actual support I paid for? I will not be flying with them again

I honestly would not recommend Avianca, especially for overnight or long-haul flights.

The flight itself was on time, and I happened to have a very nice seat neighbor — which, tellingly, ended up being the best part of the experience.

Everything else felt poorly thought out. Right after booking, my inbox was flooded with emails. More frustratingly, there is no option online to select a US work visa under “travel purpose,” which means you are forced to go to the check-in counter even if you don’t have any checked luggage. That’s a waste of time and feels completely outdated.

The seating situation was particularly bad. Legroom is minimal, and seats sold as “Plus” do not recline if they are in front of an exit row — while the seats in front of you do recline. This makes it nearly impossible to work on a laptop without being pressed into the screen. In regular economy, none of the seats recline and there are no headrests, even on a night flight from 10:35 pm to 4:25 am. This is not clearly disclosed when booking, or only buried in fine print. Had this been transparent, I would never have chosen this airline, especially after paying extra for a carry-on.

Comfort overall is nonexistent. There is a hard vertical bar in the seat that hits directly in the lower back. No blanket, no pillow. I was lucky to have a thick winter coat with me, which ended up being more useful on the plane than during my actual trip.

The security process was also absurd. There were three separate security checks without ever leaving the international terminal. Each time, water had to be thrown away. You buy water thinking you’re finally done with security, only to be told again to discard it. The airline gives no warning about this at all. The third check takes place right at the boarding gate, and the staff there did not speak English, even though the flight was to Washington DC. To make things worse, not everyone was checked, so some passengers boarded with full bottles while others were left completely dehydrated.

Onboard service felt entirely sales-driven. Water costs $4. Announcements promoting paid snacks and drinks were extremely loud, even in the middle of the night, and the cabin lights were fully turned on around midnight. Upon landing, there was even an announcement about a 50% discount on onboard products, which really summed up the whole experience.

The so-called “premium” seats are misleading. They are basically standard economy seats with no extra recline or legroom; the only difference is that the middle seat is blocked. That alone does not justify the higher price.

Some crew members were fine, others clearly not very welcoming. Arrival was delayed as well.

Overall, Avianca gives the impression of cutting costs on comfort and transparency while aggressively monetizing everything possible. If you care about rest, comfort, or simply being treated like a passenger rather than a sales target, I would strongly suggest choosing another airline.

I have never written a bad review nor have I ever felt so disrespected that I needed to warn the public...until now.

We booked internal flights for Colombia with both Avianca and Clic Air. We were a week away from departure when my wife and traveling buddy suffered a major injury that required 5 hrs of emergency surgery and a medical crisis that most people don't survive. Julie is alive today, but we lost our trip.

The airlines couldn't have been more dismissive. I know, first-hand, what ghosting is. I worked my ass off with emails, voicemails and chats with bots and the airlines did not reply in anyway to our pleas for refunds. I take that back - we do get auto-promotion emails.

Consider this your warning: if your family suffers a life-threatening event, these companies will not respond to your requests for assistance. You will not communicate with a living, breathing human being and you will not get your money back.

Booking.com has been ridiculous, too. They shift all responsibilty to the airlines and haven't lifted a finger to help.

Never again.

I purchased 3 tickets through Avianca and the flights were then changed. I was approved to receive a full refund. After speaking with an agent over the phone, I was advised that I needed to complete a form to receive the refund. I completed the form and was then advised the refund could not be issued on the credit card that was used to make the payment. I was then advised I needed to complete a secondary form so I could receive the payment via direct deposit. It has been over a month and they have only paid out 1 of the 3 tickets. They will not pay out the other tickets to my account and when we try and complete the form with one of the other ticket holders information we receive an error messgae.

Today Avianca gave my wife and I the worst travel experience I’ve had in years.Multiple massive delays zero accountability, and absolutely no support when it mattered. They blamed air traffic congestion for everything and left passengers stranded with no hotel, no guidance, and no empathy. If this is the new standard for customer service, Avianca has completely lost its way. Travellers deserve transparency and real solutions not excuses will avoid flying with them going forward.

Following the Airbus software update issues at the end of November I was faced with a cancelled flight. The response from Avianca was terrible, not available by phone, not available through the website. At Guatemala Airport there were very few staff and they were stressed not having been given clear guidance from management. They managed to rebook my trip that included 2 stopovers that required me to pay for 2 hotel stays or face hours in airports with no lounges available. Once I finally got onto a flight the service was terrible, boarding chaotic, seats so close together it is a wonder I could even breath, no complimentary drinks, even water you had to pay for. The seats have practically no padding at all, Avianca have taken budget to a whole new level!
Once I finally arrived at my destination a day and a half later having already paid for accommodation I did not use I was exhausted and clear I would never fly Avianca again.
I complained using Avianca's process and got the following response:

We must inform you that this irregularity in our operation was caused by external circumstances, specifically a notification from the manufacturer Airbus regarding the urgent need to perform a software update on the A320 fleet globally.

Since this situation is beyond Avianca's control, compensation is not applicable in this case. Furthermore, we have observed that you have been rebooked onto a new flight according with the available options we have; we appreciate your patience and understanding regarding this situation that has impacted our operations. We hope that this event will not prevent us from having the pleasure of serving you on your future trips.

In light of the aforementioned information, we will proceed to close the case in question. We also look forward to welcoming you aboard our aircraft on your future trips.

Whilst I understand that to compensate so many people affected would be costly they did not even offer a voucher or discount for future flights.

Flight delayed caused me lot of additional expenses but this company do not take responsability. ticket 28584347. they closed my complaint without any solutions.

I arrived at the airport by 10:30AM to check in which I did over the phone and then when i got there I had to print out a boarding pass everything was so unorganized. Then we stood in line to weight the bags which we were told that the gates were closed by the time we got to the counter 11:50 AM mind the lady was so rude and there was a guy that stated he was screaming that the flight to El Salvador was closing and I told him he never screamed I did start to talk loudly because 3 of them needed to hear me they threatened to call security. The ladies has no customer service they were rude their body language was awful unwillingly wanting to help. Online says the gates close 20 minutes from onboarding. We still had 1 hour and 10 minutes while we were being turned away. Horrible to say the very least.

Me and my wife flew Avianca Airlines from Toronto to Santiago, Chile on Business Class.

On the first leg of the journey from Toronto, when we were to check in our bag, we were told that the connecting flight out of Bogota is cancelled. The later booked us on another flight leaving Bogota nearly 10 hours later.

When we were asked to report to the boarding gate, there as another two hours delay. What disappointed me was that the counter staff did not even bother to tell us what was happening.

Added to this, the business class seats were far from what a business class seat should be — uncomfortable.