✈️ Exclusive Benefits for Readers
Verified codes to save on your next trip.
The airline Avianca started two new routes to and from Medellin, with direct flights to Quito and Guayaquil, Today I tell you how these two inaugural flights were.
A new flight report, but multiplied by two it reaches the blog, where I tell you that I was part of two inaugural flights that connected to Ecuador with a major tourist destination: Medellin.
the week of 26 al 28 last March was very important and moved for the air connectivity of the country, having won in so few days 22 new weekly frequencies and most impressive of all, is that they all went with Colombia.
Avianca inaugurated flights to and from Medellín
Within the new frequencies inaugurated these days, seven of these correspond to direct flights with Medellin both from Quito how to Guayaquil.
Gracias a la coordinación y colaboración de Avianca Ecuador pude ser parte de estos dos primeros vuelos directos de la aerolínea hacia la «ciudad de la eterna primavera» llegando al José María Córdova International Airport that just serves this beautiful city.
We now start the report multiplied by two, where as in first installment, I will tell you about how the inaugural flight from Quito to Medellín was. we start:
Inaugural flight from Quito to Medellín
We started with the flight report on YouTube of this new flight:
At Quito Mariscal Sucre Airport the launch ceremony of this new route was held from Room A8, in which local authorities were present, government and airline, who stressed the importance of this new route that will promote the cultural and tourist exchange of both destinations.
At 17:30 hours is the agreed itinerary for this flight to take off from the Ecuadorian capital, being so, the flight took off at exactly 17:40 direct to Medellin, leaving behind the need to make stopovers of several hours in Bogota O Panama as we travelers were used to.
This flight meant the restart of direct flights between the two cities, who saw his last operation between 2013 and 2014, at that moment LAN Peru operated the route from Lima, but it was suspended due to low profitability, now, thanks to more connection options in Medellín with the Avianca, we could expect a better result in the long term to be able to have a greater demand.
This first flight was made in the Airbus A320-200 registration HC-CTX, con MSN 4789, which has 11 years since its first flight and arrived new from the factory at Avianca. This aircraft is powered by CFM engines and has a single class configuration for 180 passengers with the new airline seats.
prior to towing, the flight crew gave a few words of welcome and indicated more details about this first flight and also advised that we be attentive to the realization of a traditional event in aviation: the water arch.
With this new flight, Avianca with its different subsidiaries reach a total of 8 international destinations to and from Ecuador that operate directly, which makes it the main airline in terms of number of airports served from/to the country.
Let's talk about the service and entertainment inside the plane. It is one of the topics that generates the most debate among airline travelers, for this reason we will mention it again in this report. We start with the service on board.
As we know, Avianca currently has the payment service for food and beverages with your menu on board that we reviewed in detail in a past installment on the blog, so you have the option to buy something inside the plane, to bring your food or wait for your destination to eat something.
Now let's talk about entertainment. how do you know, the airline changed seats inside your fleet single aisle, with which it eliminated the individual entertainment screens and this generated annoyance in the users. But, the airline is working on offering Wi-Fi on its flights with the Aviancaonair.com streaming system.
This system is already enabled on several of the fleet's planes and you will know it by posters on the plane's seats and also by the crew's announcement.
So now they can use the free streaming service of Avianca or bring your own pre-downloaded movies to your cell phones and use the available USB plugs. Note that some aircraft do not yet have them installed.
The flight was generally smooth with some areas of turbulence and lasted exactly 1 hour and 9 minutes, which will be the average duration of this route, What if we compare what it can take to fly via Bogota O Panama, is greatly reduced, since as we saw in a report uploaded in YouTube, You can take 5 hours of travel quietly this experience.
as we saw, The occupation of this first flight is a premonitory of a good future for the route, that will seek over time to increase its frequencies taking advantage of the international and domestic connections available in the Rionegro Airport that serves Medellin.
It should be noted that at the time of arrival at the airport, no special ceremony was held., but the new destination was notorious on the airport screens. at this very point, the arrival time is very favorable due to immigration issues, since it is the only one that arrives in the strip of 19 hours, having taken the immigration and customs process nothing more than 15 minutes versus an hour and a half from Bogotá is very favorable for the traveler's time.
Medellin inaugural flight – Guayaquil
Two days after the inaugural flight to Medellín from Quito, it was the turn of Guayaquil to receive the first flight from this same airport, which add up to a total of 7 Ecuador weekly frequencies – Medellin.
After being close to 32 hours in Medellin and finally be able to know some of its many tourist attractions, I went to the José María Córdova Airport that serves this city on international flights, a journey that lasts only 30 minutes thanks to a large road infrastructure that has been built.
We start this report with the corresponding Flight Report on the YouTube channel that you will surely like with much more information available about this route:
from this airport, Guayaquil travelers will be able to enjoy, to more than the city as final destination, a series of national and international connections such as Cartagena, Cali, Cancún, New York it is included Madrid thanks to the network of destinations Avianca that has been growing year after year in MDE.
This first flight, and as data that you always want to know, had an occupation 130 passengers leaving Medellin, while the return from Guayaquil embarked 167 passengers, very promising initial figures for this route as well.
A difference that may catch your attention, is that the flight Medellin – Guayaquil For now it is operated by Avianca Colombia, so the flight has differences AV137, while the flight operated by Avianca Ecuador to this destination is AV8386, which clearly differentiates which flight is operated by one subsidiary or another.
This flight was operated on the Airbus A320 N284AV, with serial number 4284, which has 13 years since its first new flight from the factory in Avianca and has a configuration for 180 passengers in a single, high-density class.
On this inaugural flight, No special ceremony was held, such as the participation of authorities, words the strap cutting, but we were fired towards Guayaquil with the traditional and inevitable water arch.
These flights depart from Medellin Tuesdays, Thursday and Saturday at 14:50 hours and landing in Guayaquil at 16:45 hours, with a duration of 1 hour and 55 approximate minutes of flight.
Usually, the in-flight service is similar to that offered by Avianca Ecuador, but on this particular plane, there was a noticeable difference, plugs with USB A and C connection were not yet active, so passengers who wanted to charge their devices to use the Aviancaonair system, that it was available, they could not do it and they made the crew aware of this situation, indicating that it will be installed soon once the plane enters maintenance programmed.
The flight passed without incident other than some areas of turbulence given the weather that has prevailed in recent weeks in the region, but what after 1 hours and 29 minutes of flight took us back home and allowed us to witness a new maiden flight in Ecuador, that in just a few days saw an increase in more than 15 new weekly frequencies your connectivity offer.
We wish all the successes to these new routes, as well as the others that will come in the coming weeks for the different airlines that continue to bet on our country in aeronautical matters.
✈️ Exclusive Benefits for Readers
Search here for hotels ALL over the world at the best price.
