[MENTION=10066101]Tomasz Pa[/MENTION] - It would appear that some things may be changing, no? When was your most recent Avianca flight between BOG and LAX? I do not doubt what you are saying is true or what your experience has been. But, well...

The following is from avianca.com (look here: Avianca Airlines Offers Business Class on flights to Bogotá, or if you prefer the Spanish language page, look here: Avianca ofrece Clase ejecutiva en vuelos a Los Ángeles)

Here's the first part of the announcement...



It goes on to list the benefits (food, drinks, etc., standard business class benefits).

I do note the asterisk (*) above following the phrase "Boeing 787"...that asterisk says "*Flights on this route are operated on Wamos aircraft and have a capacity of 34 executive cabin seats."

This announcement is dated 31 May. There was clearly a press release from Avianca that went out around June 1, which was picked up by the blogs linked in previous posts. In those press releases, Avianca first said that the LAX-BOG flights would be operated by Wamos from June 20 to October 20; it looks like a later press release indicated that starting July 1 (today, as I'm typing this) that flight would be on Avianca's own 787. It's not clear to me if the switch-over to Avianca's own 787 has actually happened yet (it may be that was what they had hope for, and it may or may not have actually happened; or it may be that Avianca now does not expect to take delivery of the 787 for this route until October....it's often true that plans run late). I do know that Boeing is very late in delivering a lot of 787s, so this may all still be wishful thinking, just "hopes" or "plans". We should find out soon enough if any change happened on July 1.

As to how Avianca is marketing things or actually selling things, I don't know. The process you describe (selling all tickets like a low-cost carrier, then offering the option at check-in to "upgrade" to sit in the flat seats, but NOT actually calling it "business class") may be what they've been doing, maybe that is changing, maybe it isn't. I just looked at buying a ticket on their website and they do not appear to offer to sell "business class" tickets (yet?), but maybe they are not qucik about updating their website (IT delays would not shock me, they definitely do have some IT issues).

But they clearly are making announcements about something they are now calling "business class", and - more importantly, at least for me and others who are booking award flights through their partner's mileage program - other airlines (eg their partner United Airlines) are selling this as business class, and issuing tickets as such. I have one of those.

When someone holding a business class ticket on Avianca that was issued by their partner airline shows up at the boarding gate, I can not imagine that Avianca staff are going to wag their fingers and say "no, no, no, lo siento, senior, tu nos debes $400 por el asiento..."

I will be very curious to hear from those who are flying this route July 1 or later. I'm guessing we should know more soon enough. (Personally, my flight is not until February, so I will be watching to see what, if anything, changes).