Avianca review: A330-200 economy class Buenos Aires to Bogota

I know. Normally I’m the king of organization and I post all my trip reports in the order in which I flew them. However, things were kind of busy last summer and I sort of fell behind on my writing schedule a bit.

Ok, I will admit that I was feeling slightly lazy as well, but I was mostly busy. I promise. Anyway, this post represents the Avianca A330-200 economy review I should’ve written four months ago.

AV088
Buenos Aires, Argentina (EZE) – Bogota, Colombia (BOG)
Tuesday, June 11, 2019
Aircraft: A330-243
Registration: N974AV
Duration: 5 hours 46 minutes
Seat: 12D (economy class)

Arriving at EZE for my first ever Avianca review

I made it to the airport with plenty of time to spare before my 5 and a half hour flight up to Bogota on an Avianca A330, and I was feeling pretty good about it. I was a little sleepy still, but…otherwise good.

The usual pre flight stuff

Terminal A here in Buenos Aries isn’t all that interesting if I’m being honest. It’s certainly nice…but it’s very basic with limited views to the outside. Oh – and to the cashier of the Havana Coffee shop located adjacent to gate 5 who rang up my breakfast that morning: you are the meanest cashier I’ve ever met. Just sayin’.

The old livery on the plane flying me up to Bogota this morning is one of my favorites for sure (and I’m glad it was the one that ended up in this Avianca review), but unfortunately the pic above was the best view of it could get from inside the terminal. Oh well. I was still too flustered about my encounter the meanest cashier lady on planet earth 10 minutes ago to really care.

The boarding process

Just as it was for the boarding process for my Latam flight from Santiago to Buenos Aires two days ago, exactly nobody rushed the gate until it was their turn to do so. It was freaking awesome.

Avianca A330-200 economy class is configured in a typical 2-4-2 layout. I had an aisle seat in the center section for today’s flight up to Bogota, which as you will soon see, was chosen for a *very* specific reason.

Is there not a better feeling in the world than knowing that you’re just minutes away from flying thousands of miles away from the meanest Havana Coffee shop person you’ve ever met? I’ve never been more ready to fly in my life.

You’re probably dying to know why I chose this particular seat. Well, to be honest, at this point, I still wasn’t sure if I made the right choice. Just a few more minutes to go, and I’ll know…

I may not have any wing footage in this Avianca review to show you, but I can promise you that I’m feeling like a king here in seat 12D all by my lonesome self.

What is the breakfast service like in Avianca economy class?

I guess the nice thing about suffering through one traumatic breakfast experience so far this morning meant that I was ready for anything at this point. Clumpy eggs? over cooked potatoes? grumpy flight attendants? bring it.

Should I be worried that I’ve never once heard anyone say amazing things about the food in any other Avianca review I’ve ever seen? Maybe not, considering that I’ve never heard of anyone ending up in the hospital from eating the stuff either.

Despite being one of the blandest looking plate of eggs I’ve ever had the pleasure of sitting in front of, it was surprisingly decent. Although, I’m guessing that the fact that it wasn’t served with a heaping pile of attitude as well had a lot to do with it. If I had to rate this meal, I’d say: 3 and half stars out of 5.

After breakfast (and before settling down to catch on some sleep), I made a quick trip to the loo. One of these days I’m going to experience an economy class lavatory that impresses me. Today wasn’t that day.

However, this particular visit to the loo was kind of neat because we were 7 miles above the Amazon rainforest, and…I used the loo 7 miles above the Amazon rainforest. If anything, I’d like to think that I’m in a relatively smallish group of people who can say that they’ve *actually* done that.

Relaxing (and trying to sleep) in Avianca economy class

There’s a little over an hour to go at this point, and…I’m not exactly sure what I was hoping for by checking my watch every 5 minutes. Other than massive progress of course.

Making time go by even slower was watching our pixel-by-pixel progress on the moving map. Are we there yet?

Final thoughts about my first ever Avianca experience

So that pretty much wraps up my first ever Avianca review! My entire experience was ok I guess, with mediocre food, a decent seat, and most importantly…a cabin crew a million times more friendly than a certain Havana Coffee employee back at EZE.

If I’m being honest, up until this point, the first thing I thought of when hearing someone say “Avianca” was the crash of flight 52 way back in 1990. For some reason or another, that incident really stuck with me and I’ve never been able to shake it.

Thankfully, being able to experience Avianca for myself absolutely helped to reset my thoughts and my mind doesn’t immediately got to such dark places anymore. How so? Well, it’s been four months since this flight, and I hadn’t even thought of that incident until writing about it just now. For a negative Nancy such as myself, that’s huge.