A swing through South America

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I had about two hours connection at BOG so headed to the AV lounge. The entrance looked quite nice and so did the lounge as I approached the desk. Oh, that’s for AV Diamond members, keep going to the Star Gold lounge…

This one looked nice.


But ultimately it was into this lounge.


BOG airport is quite spacious and I got to walk almost to the far end for the departure gate for the next flight.


BOG-GUA AV742
A320-200 J
N538AV
On time

Operated by Avianca Guatemala (Aviateca). Basic eurobusiness style seating with the centre seat blocked by a small arm rest/table. 2.5 hr sector.

This was the aircraft (on the left), parked beside an AA Max8 being pushed back.


Departure had us passing the Wamos jet now relocated from the arrival gate to the cargo ramp.


More to come, on next flight and about to depart.

 

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On departure from BOG (had seen the same on arrival) there are hundreds of greenhouses on the outskirts of the city. Googling reveals that these are likely growing cut flowers for the international market.


I guess the year round tropical conditions and fertile land helps!

On the A320 flight there were three rows of effectively 2-2 seating with all the middle seats blocked. It has the effect of giving additional width to the seat but the pitch is Y+ rather than J. When the person in front reclined the ability to use a laptop on the tray table was a little constrained.

Again they handed out the card with the pax name and room for comments on one side and the drinks list on the other side. Drinks were offered after take off and the choice of two hot meals. I chose the spinach and cheese ravioli which tasted more pesto than spinach. It tasted pretty good despite the look.



The flight was an uneventful two hours then descent into Guatemala City. Due to the terrain there were a couple of turns on the approach to line up with the runway. Impression of Guatemala was even more green than Bogotá with hills and ravines defining the urban landscape.



The cloud was also very low in some places and one area looked like it was basically on the ground.



GUA airport is very close to the city, much like AEP was in Buenos Aires. The terminal seemed overly large (long) with only our aircraft pulling up to a gate.



GUA even has an Indonesian style welcome…


The ground staff in the terminal were a little confused that I was in transit but it was actually very easy, go up one set of stairs to a bored group of security staff at the transit point and all done.

The afternoon Copa flight had departed an hour earlier so there was no *A lounge available, so I walked the length of the terminal to get some steps up and check it out.

Gate for onward flight confirmed.


There was a food court with a mix of international chains and local shops. The terminal is effectively one long building with about 20 gates and all modern conveniences you’d expect in an airport. What was good to see were lots of small local concessionaires between gates. It definitely wasn’t busy although in the two hours I had there, there were maybe three or four departures. Seemed like a cluster of departures to the US in the evening with UA, AA and DL gates set up for connections to various cities (IAH, LAX, MIA). They were all around the same gate location as the onward AV flight I’d be taking to IAD, yet there were no special or additional USA related screening / questions.

 

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GUA-IAD AV654
A320-200neo J
N937AV
Arrived 20 minutes early

This flight was operated by Avianca Costa Rica (also formerly part of Aviateca), with the aircraft having come in from San Jose the capital of Costa Rica as the same flight number.

Same seats, same two hot options for a meal (although different choices: the pasta had mushrooms in it so I went for the chicken) and same drinks available.

There was a girl (lady?) just randomly coughing in the aisle seat beside me, with no covering her mouth… and who didn’t put her bag under the seat but left it in front of the blocked middle. Crew seemed fine with that.
She took the hint after the fifth or sixth cough when I directed both mine and middle air vent in her direction. Fortunately she slept most of the flight and that stopped the coughing.

AV do provide a pillow and blanket pack at each J seat. Amenity kits were also handed out for this flight, which was four hours duration and planned to arrive at Dulles at 0200. No pics, as it was dark all flight. Mind you, heading up the eastern seaboard of the US was just constant towns and cities of lights.

Entertainment is wifi to own device so I watched the recent Matrix release: quite forgettable even though it tries to ‘resurrect’ the first movie which is one of my favourite films.

Dulles arrival in the early AM was okay. No advantage on being first off the plane as we were all directed to one of their inter-terminal shuttles to be delivered to CBP for immigration. Got given the third degree by the agent which was significantly more than I’ve ever been asked arriving into the US; single traveller arriving from Central America - yeah that checks out.

 

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Baggage took maybe 40 minutes to appear at IAD which seems ridiculous given how few other movements there were. Due to the early AM arrival I’d booked a Dulles hotel (Hampton Inn) for the night before, so gave them a call after baggage claim and their shuttle was there to collect me in 15 minutes. Hampton claim they have good beds and after a shower I collapsed into it about 0400 and slept soundly through to my alarm at 1120 for a 1200 check out. Excellent.

Wasn’t going to bother with their complementary breakfast which finished at 10am as most chain hotels like that just have a poor collection of processed food and terrible coffee. Instead I took their shuttle back to Dulles, grabbed a latte and a bite there and then headed to the IAD Metro station.

The transfer between Washington area airports IAD-DCA is pretty simple: USD75-95 in a cab (Washington Flyer) or maybe a bit less via Uber, or about USD8 via Metro. The silver line runs from IAD into the city and to get to DCA you make one connection at Rosslyn just north of Arlington Cemetery, to the Blue line for DCA.

Unfortunately Rosslyn and a couple of other adjacent stations were closed due to trackwork over the weekend. This meant getting off a couple of stops earlier and catching a replacement bus to the Pentagon Metro stop. It was all signposted and easy, even with luggage. Then it was a couple of stops to the DCA Metro stop and another shuttle bus to my DCA hotel for the night. This was again booked due to a morning departure from DCA picking up the return leg of my UA ticket.

Walked up to Arlington (a good 2.5Km leg stretch) but didn’t realise they closed the site at 1700, so didn’t have time to get to any of the memorials. Three headed to the river briefly and back to the hotel just as it was getting dark and quite cool. Dinner was a burger at the hotel ‘pub’ and early to bed before a 0600 shuttle to DCA.

 

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DCA-ORD UA1061
A319-100 F
N850UA
Arrived 30 minutes early, which meant a gate wasn’t available so we sat and waited on an ORD taxiway for 20 minutes.


The shuttle to DCA took all of about 7 minutes; UA check in took all of about 2 minutes; but then TSA stopped the dream run with a 40 minute stupidathon to get airside. Then it’s about a five minute walk to the small UA gate area and to the very nice United Club… which was ‘temporarily closed’.

…for a month apparently. Oh well, coffee from Zeke’s opposite the gate it is then. UA has been sending some of its Premier Access members a $25 voucher during the closure. Guess I should have asked at check-in, if I’d known.


UA A319 still sleeping.

After grabbing a coffee I walked down to the other end of the airport. Where UA uses only about 4 gates at DCA, due to having its hub at IAD, AA is the opposite. They must’ve had 25 gates worth of aircraft, all bustling with activity on a Monday morning. The lines at Dunkin Donuts and Starbucks in that part of the terminal were better described as scrums.


Back to the quieter UA end and still nothing doing.



Eventually got away on time. UA F is nothing special to describe, but they did offer a drink and the snack basket during the flight.