Avianca Reviews 1,801

The worst company ever😡😡😡

We recently had a trip to Colombia which involved 2 international and 4 domestic flights. The experience was excellent. All flights took off on time and landed on or before the scheduled time. Staff on the ground and in the air were really helpful and polite.

Excelent service by Pamela and brayan .they help me lot for chakiing luggage . Very polite and very helpful person .

Cheap flights but horrible service. The airline is shit and blame you or the airport when your flight gets missed, even if your flight arrives 15 mins before a connection. Don’t bother with these losers!

Very small seats. I paid for business class and it was extremely uncomfortable.
Other flight I paid for plus seats and they were terrible. During all flight the wifi didn't work.
It is just the worst airline. Should avoid as much as possible

If I could give zero stars, I would. Our experience with Avianca was, without exaggeration, the worst airline experience of my life! A complete masterclass in incompetence, miscommunication, and customer disregard.

Our trip from Lima to Los Angeles was a disaster from the moment we arrived at the airport. Just 1.5 hours before takeoff, we were notified that our connecting flight in El Salvador was canceled and pushed 36 hours later. Not delayed but CANCELED!!

When we asked for help at the check-in desk, the Avianca staff shrugged, offered nothing, and told us to “call customer service.” When we called customer service, they told us the opposite, that we needed to speak to the people at the airport. So we were stuck in a loop where no one would take responsibility and each person pushed us off to someone else. Absolutely no solutions, no rebooking options, nothing. Just “we can refund you” and “good luck.”

To make things worse, Avianca’s own broken website wouldn’t let us buy carry-on baggage. The system wouldn’t allow purchases because the flight was marked canceled. When we showed this at the airport, the staff didn’t care. They forced us to pay $105 per bag per flight, adding up to $440. They acknowledged their own website was the problem and told us to hold onto the recipes and they would reimburse us. Spoiler: Avianca didn’t refund a single cent.

Then came the chaos in the El Salvador airport. Hours and hours of delays with no updates. A customer service line that was three hours long because practically every Avianca flight had been canceled. And once again, Avianca staff told people to “submit receipts” because they couldn’t help anyone. We submitted everything. Avianca reimbursed NOTHING.

Their communication since then has been nonexistent. Emails ignored. No follow-up. No acknowledgement. No courtesy. No apology. Nothing. After we returned home, I reached out, multiple times , to get compensated for the baggage fees, the food we had to buy, the wasted hours stuck in El Salvador, and the entire flight fiasco. Avianca ignored the first messages completely. When they finally responded, they claimed there was “nothing they would do,” despite the fact that their own airport staff repeatedly told everyone who was impacted by this delay on the flight to request reimbursement and assured us all it would be covered.

Avianca has been: Rude, Unhelpful, Inconsistent, Disorganized, Completely unresponsive once they have your money.

This airline fails at every level! Customer service, basic communication, operational reliability, honesty, accountability, and even functioning technology. I would tell anyone considering flying with them: don’t do it. Pay more, fly literally any other airline, and save yourself from what will almost certainly be an infuriating, expensive, miserable experience.

Avianca is, without question, the most unprofessional and unreliable airline I’ve ever dealt with.

Nothing about this airline is positive. We have been travelling thru South and Central America for 3 months and have been let down by Avianca on multiple occasions.Significant changes in flight times at the last minute, missed connections, huge arrival delays of up to 15 hours, an online compensation system that is designed not to work or pay out, poor staff, everything is an extra cost, the list goes on. If you can avoid I would recommend you do so at all costs. we have nothing positive to say. On the opposite side LATAM have been fantastic.

Not terrible but you won’t make your two hour connection in all likelihood.

Terrible experience flight from Bogota flight AV254 after two hours delay, 20 minutes bus right to the immigration area the bags took more than an hour to arrive to the belt.

I have never had such a poor service! The worst experience of my life, i had a connectio flight with that very same airline, and yet, i lost my flight and got stuck for the entire day till i got another flight! They took ONE DAY OF MY TRIP.
I rated one star because the site doesn’t allow me rate less. Such a waste of time and money. DONT FLY WITH AVIANCA NEVER!

The worst airline. They didn’t let me fly and said I have 3 months to choose for a new day I would like to fly. When I finally choose the day they are asking for half of the money of a new ticket. Worst service ever, specially if u are flying in business. They don’t care. Avoid at any cost

I want a refund due to illness, they want documents. When i go to their useless process it only allows you upload 1 single file and it cant be more than 1MB. 1 fc MB.

On Sunday 15th February at around 7pm. I took my lovely wife to Heathrow Terminal 2 for her trip to Barranquilla, Colombia(21.40 flight). The man who was at the Aviana initial check in point which is all digital, dealt with us kindly and efficiently and couldn't have been more polite and helpful, fully and clearly bilingual. Excellent service. We then went to the case check in and weighing processing point and he man there was even more helpful, we were over weight in one case and he advised us on what we needed to do and was also generous with our final weights when distributed a little more evenly. He was very kind polite and fully bilingual. Again Excellent service by 2 Colombian men in a stressful job keeping calm and helping with a smile, very Colombian traits! Thank you so much guys and Avianca for making the stress of checking in a lot easier!

Tried for 3 hours to amend seat via the app and website. Directed to the automated WhatsApp chat which didn't work. Phoned and spent 45 mins on the line to someone only to get cut off with no resolution.

Flight to Bogota delayed for over 2 hours.

Baggage at Quito lost for 3 hours. An airport employee told me to ask for help at an unmanned Avianca desk. When I pointed out that there was no one there, she said to use the QR code taped to the desk. The qr code took me to an FAQ on the avianca website which was neither bilingual nor helpful. Again directed to WhatsApp help bot which doesn't work. I protested and was sent to the avianca desk who sent someone to search the conveyor belt in case it was jammed somewhere. He returned empty handed and his colleague said, he didn't know where it was, why it had been lost or what I could do to get it back. I protested again and he sent me upstairs to the avianca office where a man who mostly ignored me somehow located the bag. This man refused to respond to me when I spoke but eventually walked me to the luggage which had appeared on the conveyor belt. No apology or explanation when asked where it had been. He left without another word. I'd been travelling for 30 hours by this point and it was v stressful.

Missed airport collection due to 3 hour delay and had to get an expensive taxi to the hotel.

Avianca flight from Guayaquil to Seymour Island - unable to buy snacks because they only accepted cash and my full wallet was packed away. Return flight from San Cristóbal to Guayaquil - unable to buy snacks because they only accepted card. This time I'd brought cash in preparation. No consistency or payment policy.

Avianca baggage drop at San Cristóbal took 45 minutes despite 3 desks and a small queue of people. No AC. Customers pouring with sweat. No clear reason why - just an indifferent attitude to customer service.

Once the baggage was checked, the scanning machines were broken so airport staff were manually checking bags with their bare hands. Not avianca's fault but everyone's stress was exacerbated because of the prior delays with avianca which meant we all risked missing the flight. Everyone eventually boarded with minutes to spare.

Bogota to Heathrow - delayed by 2 hours and the boarding gate was moved to the opposite end of the airport with short notice leading to several people running panicked to get there in time.

Once boarded, there was a further delay to take off with no apology or explanation given.

Underneath my feet was a manky half eaten sandwich and god knows how long it'd been there.

Then when we finally took off, the airplane started DRIPPING cold water on my head. I pressed the assistance button twice but no one came.

The lights were left on until 3am so it was difficult to sleep.

Then at 3am, they served pasta and coffee??? And woke everyone up who had fallen asleep.

No water offered during 9 hour flight apart from 1 cup at meal times = 2 small cups. I'd been boiling all day so was dehydrated and suffered because I'd expected water or at least the option to buy some having drank my personal bottle.

In the morning, my row wasn't offered coffee but other rows were. The 2 people next to me received 2 glasses of water whereas I had 1 for no clear reason. They collected rubbish from other rows but not ours so we had to sit in it for hours.

At Heathrow, they lost my luggage again. I was sent to search the oversized luggage area for it then scolded because I didn't have the luggage tag. Note - the Bogota avianca employee did NOT give me a luggage tag but I was blamed for this and treated with suspicion.

Then again, as if by magic, after the Bogota luggage drop had closed, my luggage reappeared with no explanation and no apology. Staff were rude and defensive.

Due to the delayed flight, I missed my connection at Heathrow so had to buy another coach ticket back to Wales.

Total hours delayed: 4 (+1 to get later coach home)
Total hours spent looking for luggage: 3.5
Apologies received: 0
Total extra costs due to delays: around £200

after over 20 years of traveling with different airlines I can say that avianca is the worst airline I have ever flown with !!!!!

If you want your intestines crunched to your ribs because of the lack of leg room, fly Avianca. Airline is playing with lives with seats this tight.

I’ll give them one, flights were on time. But comfort and tranquility I give this airline a low, low, low, low ZERO.

Terrible, terrible!! Stay away!! They delayed my flight and made me miss the next one. I arrived a day later and couldn’t find my bags. No one works at the counters and you are just stuck waiting around until someone shows up. This is the worst company to flight with. Do not use them!! I went from USA to Bolivia

Recently we were forced to use this airline, my advice? Don’t use it… is best to pay a little more rather than the hassle of getting your bags lost or damage this company doesn’t pay enough to their worker so as a result you get these employees not caring about your bags showing up or damaged they just wash their hands and blame something else rather than being honest and understanding, the airplane was not comfortable even tho I flew first class!!!! Their first class is comparable to economic plus rather than first class, I reply to their email saying that I will never use their shitty company ever, so my advice don’t use it!

I am extremely disappointed with my experience booking tickets with Avianca airline.

During the ticket purchase process, I was charged twice for the same booking. The payment went through twice, and I received two confirmations. This is not a minor inconvenience — it is a serious billing error that caused unnecessary stress and forced me to spend time tracking down money that should never have been taken in the first place, and trying multiple times to get help from different agents on the phone.

What makes this worse is that this issue should be basic and preventable for an airline of your size. Customers should be able to trust that they will be charged accurately, especially when purchasing airline tickets, which are already expensive.
The same day I purchased the ticket, I noticed a duplicate charge and immediately called customer service to request a refund. I was promised by an agent named Carlos that I would receive the refund within 24 hours.

When I called again after a few days, another agent, Diego, told me I would receive refund within 72 hours. On a subsequent call, Damis then asked me to allow 10 business days to receive my money back.

It has now been more than 20 days, and the company closed my case as “resolved” without ever refunding the duplicate charge. I reported this as a fraudulent charge to my bank and closed my credit card.

This company is a SCAM!!!

Horrible. Expefiencia. Mido 5,9 y mis piernas son largas. Pague plus porque decia que tenia mas espacio. Y es una gran mentira.