I was once told that "Avianca is the Latin United". While I didn't get beat up by the staff, I did…read moreget lied to and (attempted) cheated, so I guess I still had the authentic experience
I don't know where to start on this, so I'll just give a play by play of how things went down:
Left Ecuador at 0400. Arrived at Bogota with enough time to make it to Mexico, and then to Vancouver.
Flight to Mexico delayed due to reasons, that's fine, that happens. Arrive at Mexico at 1515, and miss the 1600 flight. That shouldn't be the end of the world, it happens with flights. Well....
Then it gets weird...
Getting off the flight, every Avianca person I speak to says everything will be fine and that I'll make my flight.
However, once out, there story changes to, I should have made my flight (?) They should have been on time!
Avianca tells me it's the two other airlines that will be comping tickets to make up for the missed flight. Two hours wasted as two other airlines don't know what's going on.
Avianca issues a "ticket" for a 0110am flight. I'm given one 10$ food voucher to make up for the hassle.
Another guest who also missed the flight was given not only two vouchers, but also an hotel for the night.
2300hrs comes around and I go to check in to X airline, who all but one staffer, were absolutely horrible with regards to dealing with this, even threatening to call security for having a fake/invalid ticket.
Let's come back to that point: I was issued a F A K E ticket. Everything on the ticket looked real, but it matched nothing in the system. The police said "must be mistake, must be mistake!"
Have you ever heard of a mistake like FAKE TICKETS FROM A MAJOR AIR CARRIER?
So the 0110 flight would not let me on board, this means that I just waited eight hours in the airport, while the other guest got an hotel room. I also of course was forced to miss work back in Canada.
On the phone with Avianca, whenever I would call, they would say "we don't speak English", and hang up. Yes, a major international airline call centre, that doesn't speak English?
On the phone to the other X airline, Avianca said that the ticket was correct, but I was in the wrong, and also that I should buy another ticket home at cost, and thankfully X airline's staff pointed out that they were just trying to scam me, and if I did that without anything in writing, I would never see a penny back from it. All of this on top of my paying $750 to get home before, and them being unable to honour it.
I then had a legally savy Mexican friend call in, and suddenly everything was peachy on the system, and they couldn't figure anything out, but without a valid boarding pass, I was forced to stay in the terminal two until 5am, when I could finally go BACK to the Avianca offices in terminal one, to sort this out.
Thankfully there was an extremely understanding lady available to help me, and who looked shocked at the nonsense ticket I produced from last night.
On top of solving things, even if it means I was stuck in the airport for 27 hours, when it should have been a simple xfer, OR the affiliate flight later the night of the day in question. Hell, why wasn't I just put on the flight the first day, that I got the second day? It wasn't empty at all.
And I was handed another $10 meal voucher, which the manager tried to veto, even.
Bonus points to the morning (female majority) staff, who actually solved all the problems in twenty minutes, thank you. You're the MVP, getting me on an actually real ticket out of this hellish ordeal.
So 25 hours locked in the airport, unable to sleep thanks to security waking people up, and two $10 vouchers compensation. What a lovely experience.
Fly anyone else if you can.
I'm not reviewing the X airline, because as shitty as they were to me, it really wasn't their problem, and one of their staff did defy orders and try to help me, so there's good people in there somewhere.