Bolivia’s national airline is adding a second route to the United States, which I think might just qualify as the world’s least pleasant flight? Y’all tell me.
Continue reading: Boliviana De Aviacion Launching The World’s Most Miserable Flight
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
“I find it interesting how the airline is launching flights on Tuesday, November 4, which also happens to be the typical election day in the United States.”
Not this year though. You knew that.
Unless their strategy was lining up with the Virginia state elections. They are landing at Dulles!
This type of product is what Washington and all the fluorescent orange sycophants that populate it deserve.
Tuesday, November 4, 2025, actually IS an election day at Washington-Dulles, physically located in the Commonwealth of Virginia 🙂
I think the all-economy 777 from Moscow to Pyongyang would qualify as the "world's most miserable flight" over this, no? 😀
Washington is the largest true US O&D market from Bolivia (Miami may have more flown pax now because of nonstop service, but a lot of VVI-MIA pax connect on to Washington. A 737 with a stop may not be the best way to serve this, though BoA has done the same on the MIA route when their 330s were getting maintenance.
Good to know that Copa may be dumping really cheap Y inventory on the IAD route in case I ever struggle to find business award availability to S. America and have to break the journey by going via the US.
I think one thing is consider is that Bolivians are often quite short and thin, plus they are used to many hardships, so those economy seats will feel more like business to them.
FWIW, I remember flying a classic 737-700 with CO from EWR-GYE with an approximately 30 minute stop at PTY to refuel. The FAs sprayed insecticide (I think it was before we landed) and the Panamanian police came on board to look at everyone for some reason. We couldn't get off. And it was an evening flight, meaning you left EWR at sometime like 6 pm and landed at GYE at like 2 am. In spite of CO having better service than AA, it was a miserable flight. Too damn long. Now, consider that Santa Cruz is a good 3 hours farther south than GYE. Miserable and not worth considering. Just go with Copa and call it a day. At least you get a stop to stretch your legs and almost certainly a newer aircraft than whatever beat-up thing BoA digs up for this.
“So” implies that one flows from the other, but that really isn’t clear in this sentence: “BoA intends to use an all-economy Boeing 737 for the flight, so the stop in Panama will exclusively be for refueling.”
Is this because of a weight issue? Can BoA carry passengers between Panama and the United States? Lots of missing info.
how is this different than 11 hours on a long haul, low cost airline? and before anyone says one plane is narrowboyd and the other widebody, yes sure but we all know the seats in the back are pretty much the same at 17 inches wide. so what's the difference?
This flight will be awful. People living here in the DC area have many better options to fly to Bolivia (to both Santa Cruz and La Paz).
You are wrong. Virginia, which is where the airport is, has elections this year on November 4
I agree. I flew Ethiopian from Addis to DC. Similar refueling stop in Dublin makes the flight about 16 hours in economy. It's always late and is scheduled to leave around 1am. Pretty sure that beats this BoA route.
Well, if you fly off your miles exclusively in BC or FC and in developed countries, you haven't really got much to compare.
I know this was more focused on narrow body misery, but think the French Bee ORY-SFO-PPT flight is way worse. Much longer trip and they managed to shove an extra seat per row, the narrowest Y seat in the world
I went from Washington to Bolivia in May. Copa through Panama City connecting to Santa Cruz. Literally half the flight from Washington connected to Santa Cruz. There's definitely demand.
Maybe they’re taking some of the USA money by running deportations. It’s certainly a thriving business right now and being a foreign airline they don’t have to concern themselves with the lack of due process.
I don't have to imagine a more miserable flight because I flew it. My grandparents loved to travel, but they weren't wealthy or extravagant.
So, one year, they decided we (I traveled with them every summer) would go to Australia but their travel agent had found a "great deal". The great deal was on Air Niugini, which, at the time, flew HNL-POM. Somehow that travel agent had booked us on an absurd routing.
LAX-HNL on The Hawaii Express' lone 747-100.
HNL-POM on Air Niugini's 707-300.
POM-SYD on, I believe, a different Air Niugini 707.
The total journey time from LAX to Sydney was significantly longer than the more direct routing on Qantas, LAX-HNL-SYD, which we did two years later. I believe it was in excess of 24 hours, all but the LAX-HNL leg, in tired narrow bodies (although seat pitch was generous).
@ Glidescope -- I spent most of my teens on United Express CRJ-200s to rack up elite qualifying segments, so absolutely. 🙂 They don't fly 10+ hour flights, though...
@ JOJO -- How about we compromise on an Air Côte d’Ivoire first class review? :p
Most miserable? How about long haul on US Bangla's 436 seat A330 or Cebu Pacific's with 459?
I know two of those comparable, one of those possibly more miserable: Y7536 Datong to Moscow via Krasnoyarsk, operated by NordStar 737-300(!!!), 10h 5min westbound. MF889 Xiamen to Male via Dhaka, 9h 25min westbound, operated by Xiamen Air 737-800.
ADD-(CAI)-MAD on a 737 (previously operated by ET) definitely breached the 9 hour mark.
Considering i live in the dc area i understand where he is coming from that it might be miserable but hey we might be suprise and their always and chance this route goes well
Nov. 4th is the first Tue. in the Northern Winter 2025-26 season. Surely that's the reason.
@ ernestnywang -- October 28 is the first Tuesday of the IATA winter season, no, since it starts on October 26?
People are wusses. I did JFK-YVR-HKG and LAX/SFO-AKL RT all the time in Y before I discovered (through this blog!) that I had a better path to flying well.
With delays and fuel stops, some of those BIS times went upwards of 20 hours. I'm 6'3" and I remember middle seats on many TPAC legs. Met a lot of interesting people. Slept very little. But young bodies can do anything.
Wouldn't trade it for anything.
I was in a meeting a few years ago where a 22-year-old colleague explained they were a bit out of sorts. "Just flew Chicago to New York, a little jet lagged, guys."
I flew on the flight but with a stop in Rome. By the end of the flight the toilets were so disgusting people were avoiding them. The flight attendants simply played on their phones. They seem to be racing Air India to the bottom. Even Air Cebu with zero leg room is infinitely better.
It is an all economy layout so I assume you will not be reviewing it since I have never seen a premium economy review let alone an economy review... Perhaps this route could be profitable for cargo.
This is a poorly researched article, 30k Boivians in DC? There's about 200k Bolivians/Bolivian-Americans living in Virginia and Maryland, the largest Bolivian community in the US is in the area. In fact, BOA's predecessor, Lloyd, use to fly to DC as well!
Not surprisingly from racist lucky, who's been to every corner of the world and flown the worst airlines, but has never been to Bolivia for some stupid reason.
Lucky sounds as racist as this OliverBoliver commenter, who commented on the hardships Bolivians have to go through, both clueless clickbaiters!
Given them a break, they have not access to the sea because of Britain, they're vicitims of the worst types of imperalism, colonialism, neo-colonialism and racism, from the likes of you and Lucky!
Te equivocas, la cantidad de bolivianos deportados apenas llega a 200, ya que la poblacion boliviana esta entre 84 mil y 140 mil en todo EEUU. El boliviano en general viene con visa, ademas que no viene porque se muera de hambre ya que gracias a Dios en mi pais la economia no es como la de los paises que “exportan” millones de indocumentados. Otro aspecto que caracteriza al boliviano es que es trabajador; es respetuoso de la ley; muy raro es ver en las noticias que se hable de un boliviano envuelto en un delito. Asi que de los bolivianos no hables.
Bajos? Hablas por quienes? Parte del occidente si, pero los del oriente tienen una estatura promedio de 5’0. El area de Washington DC, Virginia, etc son en su mayoria gente del oriente. Es como que yo diga que todos los mexicanos y centroamericanos tienen cuerpo de caja fuerte.