viva air… or not
I have been very lucky to go and travel in South America with my other half for 4 months from Argentina to Colombia.
We were flying from the Amazon forest gateway, Iquitos to Lima.
We chose to fly this return leg as the outbound with Viva Air
During our 4 months trip in Latin America, we went to a lot of places in Argentina, Chile, Peru, Bolivia, Ecuator and Colombia.
Way out:
London - Paris CDG: Air France A320 report here
Paris CDG - Buenos Aires EZE: Air France Boeing 777-200 report here
Argentina
Iguazu - Buenos Aires AEP: Latam A320 report here
Buenos Aires AEP - Salta: Latam A320 report here
Salta - Cordoba: Aerolineas Argentinas B737-800 report here
Cordoba - Mendoza: Aerolineas Argentinas (Austral) E190 report here
Chile
Santiago - Antofagasta: Sky Airlines A320 report here
Peru
Lima - Iquitos: Viva Air A320 report here
Iquitos - Lima: Viva Air A320 report here
Nazca flights: Touristic bonus Report Here
Colombia
Medellin - San Andres: Latam A320 report here
San Andres - Cartagena: Latam A320 report here
Santa Marta - Bogota: Latam A320 report here
Way back
Bogota - Paris CDG: Air France B787-9 report here
Paris CDG - Londres Heathrow: Air France A318 report here
Viva Air doesn't have an app so we booked our tickets on the website itself. Of course the basic tarif just includes a little hand bag, the next tarif up a cabin luggage and 15kg on the hull and the last one additional 20kg and priority lane. I went for the last tariff as our luggage was quite heavy.
at iquitos airport
We printed our boarding pass tickets the day before otherwise the airline charges you for it. Just as on the way out, my luggage was 1.12kg over and i got charged extra for it despite my best protestations, arguing the higher tariff should be more generous, especially since the custom is usually 23 kg not 20.
We then went through security quite quickly - with bottles full of water (not causing any issues it seems in Latin America).
Our Viva bird was an A320-200 with sharklets.
Aircraft: Airbus A320-214
Registration: HK-5286
Engines: 2x CFM56
Age: 9 months
Layout: Y188
Observation: Registered in Colombia but used for Viva Air Peru.
Boarding happened in a single queue/group old fashion way, walking towards the aircraft.
on board the a320
Our seat was clean and that's about it. The seat pitch was the smallest I've ever seen. The seats themselves are some sort of faux leather covered ironing boards, with a tiny food tray (size of an enveloppe).
We took off with a 14 min delay, after safety briefing performed by the crew and an announce from the captain.
the crew quickly started their on board service but we didn't chose any food.
Per flight radar we reached 38,000 feet quite quickly and the rest of the flight was smooth.
The airline didn't offer any entertainment.
We flew over the andese montains and its snow peaks.
Viva air magasine was very average with a lot of advertisement. On the corporate section there was an interesting memo from the c.e.o. in both english and spanish, explaining the benefits of flying low-cost, that you are told you can only pay what you need (even if experienced otherwise).
arriving at lima airport
The descent was fine and he landing was a bit tough, the plane started taxiing for a very short time as the arrival gate was almost in front of our exit point from the taxiway. The luggages arrived soon after.
