redtailshark

I arrived on AV from LIM on Monday night - late, b/c of the delayed inbound.

First, let me say that AV took good care of the irop - hotel was provided, meal vouchers at hotel, and transportation late at night. AV were going to rebook me for CLO on the 0640 but this would have been Asmodean after getting to the hotel at 1am. So I asked for another departure and they gave me a 12pm flight.

BA can certainly learn from this.

But there were several aspects of AV/BOG T2/T1 operation that can be improved.

1. T2 arrivals corridors are not well signed for domestic connecting pax. There are many signs for international connections and even AV reps asking people to ID themselves.... but none affirming that all pax with domestic should proceed to customs. Clarity of signage is important to the tired traveler.

2. AV in LIM had told me that I needed to retrieve my bags for customs inspection at BOG and then recheck. I waited and when my bags did not appear, I asked an AV rep where they were and she told me no senor, a CLO. Contradictory information is not helpful - I wasted quite some time standing there until the carousel shut down, with numerous A330s worth of bags piling up.

I think they were being helpful by not requiring I do this but it added greatly to the delay. Anyway, I walked through and submitted my form without the cases.

3. The entire connecting process needs clear explanation on the onboard video briefing that AV provides. As US carriers do for the immigration forms. If AV is serious about delivering high-level service some small improvements would really help.

The next morning there was the T1 shuffle. This deserves its own thread.

coolcoil

+1 on the lack of training in this area.

The removal of the requirement to retrieve your luggage on arrival in BOG when connecting domestically is fairly new, but has been in place long enough that AV should have trained everybody in foreign stations by now.

What you experienced is a pain-in-the-neck, but not horrible. I went through the same thing the first time I arrived at T2 on my way to MDE. However, the advice I often hear given to passengers going to the USA and connecting domestically is worse.

I don't know how many times I have heard either an AV or CM desk agent tell USA-bound passengers that they don't have to collect their bags at the first destination in the USA. If they follow this advice, their bags will be left behind at that stop. I always correct the information when I hear it, but unlike some F/T'ers, I don't hang out at the airport 24/7, so I can't catch them all.

Of course, there are almost always announcements on the airliner that all passengers must collect bags and go through customs, but I am sure that there are some passengers who don't hear (or listen) and rely on the agent's information.

JohnnyColombia

I had no idea either that it is no longer necessary to claim bags in BOG when making a connection. Is this just AV or LA too?

Surely this doesn't make sense. If you are travelling onwards to a tiny airport such as AXM or NVA then there is no customs, and if you fly domestically into an international airport such as PEI or MDE then they are treating you as a domestic arrival.

So you arrive at BOG checking the box "All my bags are arriving with me" because they just got off of the same airplane. But they don't go through customs with you? You then travel on to a second destination with no customs scrutiny?

This is great news for people that are reconciling international drug smuggling accounts. I tick the box that says that I do not have more thank US$10K in cash or monetary instruments. Stroll through BOG customs with just my rollerboard with a spare pair of boxers and some toothpaste in it. Then send the cash on to the next airport.

Did I understand this right?

coolcoil

I can't speak for LA, but it works for me on connections from UA to both AV and CM.

The bags still go through customs scanning at BOG, just not in your presence. I have been told they all go through scanners, and I believe at least some are hand checked as well. They are then sent to your connecting airline as domestic baggage that you collect in the normal domestic bag check.

I don't know what they do if you have something to claim or they find something of interest. I would bet that turns into a bureaucratic nightmare.

While it is convenient, it poses two problems:

1) More opportunity for theft, though it has not happened to me.

2) It appears to me that connecting bags don't always get processed right away. I would say that on 25% of my connections, the bags have not made it onto my plane even though they were not tight connections, and they were delivered the next day.

I would expect that anybody trying to bring in cash would keep it on their person. In more than 100 entrances to the country, I have been asked about cash maybe 15 times and have never had my person searched.

NOTE: FWIW - the only time I did have a lot of cash (<$10,000, though) was a time they did ask me. I told them about it. I got taken to a side office. I had to produce it, and they counted it. Once they were satisfied it was less than $10K, I was on my way. They did not search me to see if I had more hidden elsewhere.

NOTE to potential robbers: I do everything by electronic transfer now.

drvannostren

I'll say that BOG's transition to it's new setup has been pretty crappy. The signage was lacking and arriving from YYZ I found myself knowing I'd have to clear customs but not sure if I'd have to pick up my bags. As they were held in a secure area it wasn't required, the signs after that again were lacking.

Then I noticed I was directed to walk outside of the secure area, which didn't really make sense to me, but then later directed to walk back through security at Puente Aereo (T2 Domestic). It was fairly smooth but only because I speak good spanish, I've worked at an airport for a long time and I've been through BOG more than a couple times. I can see though how it'd be very difficult for someone who doesn't speak the language as I tried my best to help out a couple of Americans who were clearly not sure what they were supposed to do.

I had over 2 hours connection time, and in their previous configuration the customs line was long and straight in a bunker area, now the area is nice, but the line was twice as long. I spent over an hour in the line, meanwhile the residents line was flowing without issue.

Then we had the rolling delays. Every flight in/out of BOG right now is pretty much delayed, international flights less so. There was a partial pilot's strike (which is being worked on, so service currently should be ok) and I was told a runway had been shut down due to construction. My connection to MDE left over 1:30 (pretty crazy for a flight that runs almost 20 times daily).

Coming back through BOG was much worse, my MDE-BOG was too late and my connection was missed. You received much better service because Avianca's "best offer" was to put me with them the next morning. No hotel, no food, no ground transportation even to Rionegro (as Medellin proper is 45 minutes away). I proposed multiple other Star Alliance partner routes which they refused as they didn't want to pay and said the issues in Bogota weren't their responsibility (which is BS). Eventually I had to suggest a new route MDE-BOG-MEX-YVR which they said "oh, yea we can put you on that route, sure" a route they never offered me, which got me home 6 hours earlier than the "best offer". Congratulations on knowing your own flights folks...gotta love knowing their sched better than they do. I will continue to fly Avianca, because it's really the only normal choice in Colombia and because I've previously liked them, plus *A miles. However, I felt pretty put out by these people on that day and being at the airport for 9:30am - 17:30pm (which is when my new flight, which was also delayed, left) was really REALLY ...... and the best I got out of it was a "sorry, but it's not our responsibility".

EDIT: Just realized how long this was, sorry for the rant.