Nature Air flight review...
 

Just posted this - thought indexing it here might be useful!

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trip-...c-xqp-sjo.html

Nice report, Tony. Nature Air does a good job. As someone who lives in San Jose, I liked it better when they had all their operations in their own little airport, Tobías Bolaños (code = SYQ), on the far west side of the city. Now it means trekking all the way out to SJO in Alajuela.

Both Nature Air and Sansa, the other domestic airline, recommend against doing what you did, though. You're definitely on your own for same-day domestic-to-international and international-to-domestic itineraries, and they advise against it. With no joint ticketing or codeshares or bag transfers with the international airlines, you're not protected.

Glad you had a good trip! :)

Thanks for the feedback. I guess we had to take the gamble on the same day connection as otherwise we would have lost a whole day of the trip.

Swiss Tony - I'm not sure I shouldn't be cursing your name instead, but thank you for the report!! Both the hotel stay (but in the Cockpit Cottage) and Nature Air have been incorporated into my upcoming trip! I couldn't quite bring myself to do the same day connect though. :)

For those travelling on Nature Air on domestic flights from SJO, do they go through the international sterilized area? Can they buy at the IMAS duty free shops?

For outbound flights, yes, pax do pass through the international area. The IMAS shops deliver your purchases to the gate upon presentation of your boarding pass. Would they sell anything to you if you're on a domestic flight? I don't know.

How about a domestic to domestic connection (Quepos-San Jose- Liberia). I didn't see anyone with a non-stop. The 9 Am looks like it's a healthy 2.5 hour connection, so I'm thinking I would be fine (there is a second SJO-LIR flight but it's abourt 4 hours later).

Nature Air experience, on day of fatal crash
 

My family of four was scheduled to fly Nature Air from Drake Bay to SJO on Dec 31, 2017.

We arrived at the single-strip airport, the only passengers, somewhat apprehensive about heavy rain that had just started (note: this is the dry season in Costa Rica). The agent on scene had weighed our luggage and us when he got a phone call that our flight was cancelled. We initially assumed weather was the reason. Only then did we learn of the fatal crash earlier in the day, which resulted in all Nature Air planes being grounded. (I can't include links to articles - too few posts - but the crash was in Guanacaste, shortly after take off. All 12 aboard were killed, causes still under investigation, high winds and/or mechanical failure suspected.)

While we were on the line with our travel agent trying to figure out what to do (we had flights back to the US the next day) Nature Air was also coming up with a plan. They offered us immediate ground transportation to our destination, involving a series of vehicles; we essentially became the baton in a three-stage relay that delivered us directly to our hotel in under 6 hours. The drivers were all in communication with each other along the way, and the hand-offs were flawless; it was a better and more efficient arrangement than we (or our travel agent) could have come up with.

It took significant work for Nature Air to come through for our family, in the face of a tragic loss of life and painful day for the airline. We were grateful for and impressed by the effort they made in our behalf.

Does anyone know if the Nature Air flight from Arenal to Quepas, or from Quepas to LIR, is on a single engine plane?