Review: Boliviana De Aviacion Business Class Airbus A330 (MIA-VVI)

‘World Atlantic’ and ‘Global X’ sound like the generic names of airlines that are used in a movie.

Ben, is this your first time ever flying out of a (commercial) terminal with a single flight?

I’ve never had that experience before.

Random question/thought on:

“One thing I found fascinating is that the crew was at the gate at 9PM, a full two hours before departure. It’s rare to see airline crews show up that early.”

Do flight crew still have to be out of their hotel rooms at ~11 am or do airlines have special conditions/book the following night. Sure sounds unpleasant to have to be out of your room almost 12 hours before you start work with no where to shower.

Actually not that surprising that foreign crew (who are paid poorly) don’t have anywhere to go or want to spend money at before late flight

I've flown that plane, back in its Virgin Australia days.

I'd agree the seats are very good for an A330 product - comfortable, and the bed is relatively spacious. It was almost too good for the 5 hour SYD to PER route that it typically flew.

This is a great review - I've been looking forward to it. I'm going to Bolivia in 2025, but flying on copa as from DC they offer the best routing, but I was considering taking this one.

Good thoughts on MIA Concourse F. That place is historic and old. Back in the day that was Pan Am's concource, then United operated its hub out of those gates until they shut that hub down around 2004/2005. That lounge use to be a really great United Club. Memories!

Thanks, Ben. It’s content like this that keeps me reading here.

It actually feels perfectly acceptable to be honest and quite good value.

Just so you know, there was a crew member napping in a business class bulkhead seat on my LAX-SIN SQ flight so it does happen on those airlines.

"Gosh, Concourse F is kind of not very nice, to put it politely. I don’t think very highly of Miami Airport to begin with, but this is especially basic."

You better be careful. The Miami airport officials may come after you.

The hard product looks excellent. For sure, 100% better than my expectations. The dinner (minus the cheese and salad) looks like it was much better than average, especially that piece of salmon. The wine selection appears to be Bolivian wine. Kudos to the airline for serving wine from Bolivia. Not sure if it's any good, but it's probably better than serving $3-$8 wine from California, like Delta. As for the safety, perhaps there is no Bolivian rule about requiring serviceware to be removed or seats being upright. I've seen plenty of other airlines from countries outside North America and Europe be more relaxed in this regard.

Nice review Ben. I would have been excited as well first arriving at the airport.

They ‘vibed’ me like local surfers once at Checkin with British Airways in Houston on my way to Mumbai regarding my visa. In this case I had a printout of my visa on hand and stood my ground. They suggested that my India visa expires tomorrow. I then quickly read it and it stated entry to India by that date.

"to book the airline is with cash (what a novel concept)" - I don't think this word means what you think it means. You didn't actually book this flight with cash.

Had the opportunity to fly in late October...was very impressed knowing BOA's reputation

Some big kudos to their customer service team - after you had mentioned in your original post that there was no amenity kit provided, I reached out (maybe just more than once ; ) ) - and had asked if there was any way one could be loaded on the way in from VVI, as i find this to be a rare one - and after a few tries, was notified that it wouldnt be possible....

Come boarding time - I was pretty blown away that there was one brand new amenity kit awaiting on just one seat of the plane, 2k

Food i found to be better than just palatable, but overall a great snooze down to Santa Cruz - a fun experience!

Tee Hee !

It looks good enough as a hard product, everything else seems rather mediocre though from the ground experience to food. Seems like this is one of those flights where you go to sleep immediately and call it a night.

Did you need to get a Bolivian visa on arrival? If so, how was the experience? I’ve been wanting to visit Uyuni, though I have heard that you needed a yellow fever vaccine. Has anyone else needed to get a VoA? I’d appreciate the info!

I also found it interesting how you mentioned that all Super Diamond seats are tomorrow or less, the same. I remember flying the Garuda A330 and I believe that the seats were Super Diamonds as well (the shape of the stowage area where headphones are kept have a very peculiar shape). I remember the footwell being quite tight and having difficulty sleeping (I’m 5’6). I also hated the screen seat controls on Garuda, it takes five who minutes for it to dim… imagine trying to sleep with that super bright screen in your face!

@Jason - correct! Concourse F used to be Pan Am - and was then the home of UA when they had a Latin Am hub in MIA. The Club America was a gorgeous Red Carpet Club. I wonder if it was an original Pan Am WorldClub?
Concourse F is a sad sack. When I visited Club America it made lounges in Latin America seem like AA Flagship lounges.

Ben - if you really want to see a horrible concourse go to G. I believe it is the home of similar airlines that use F. NW and AC used it years ago.

Mayor Daniela has no love for Concourse F or G. No payola!

Great review, thanks!

Re crew napping in business class, I have seen this on some of the 'stricter' airlines however I believe it came with the blessing of the company.

Many times flying from HKG - Australia on Cathay I would see crew climbing into empty business class seats once the lights were dimmed as the A330s which operated those routes at the time did not have proper crew rest. I later found out this was a policy the company was happy to provide.

And according to Proximanova, this and Copa 737 are whay you should fly instead of Korean Air 787 and and JAL A35K, because you should "visualise yourself flying Qsuites or Air France or JAL or something of that kind! ;)".

At least this looks like a decent business class option tho.
Copa? No thanks. Keep that for yourself.

Almost uniformly (in the US at least), transportation companies have it written into hotel/lodging contracts that the rooms can be occupied until the crew is supposed to report for duty. Normal check in/out times do not apply, and generally speaking the company pays for the rooms as a 24-hour period.

Example 1: Crew flies into, let’s just say Denver and arrives the hotel at 11:30pm. They fly out the following night and have to depart the hotel at 8:30pm. So, it’s about a 21 hour stay. The company pays the hotel for one night of lodging.

Example 2: Crew flies into Denver at 10am and their flight out is 10pm the following night. This is about a 36 hour stay. The company would pay the hotel for two nights of lodging. (Over 24 hours)

Example 3: Crew flies into Denver at 9am and departs the hotel at 9pm the same day. One night paid to the property even though the crew members are not there for a “night” at all.

Example 4: Crew flies into Denver at 10pm and is scheduled to depart the hotel the next day at 10am. Their flight is super delayed and they don’t check out until 10pm. One night of lodging expense. If the flight is delayed until 3am the following day (again, it depends on how the contract with the hotel is written), but generally the company would be on the hook for a second night if the crew stays after midnight.

Also worth noting - usually it’s written into a contract that the company doesn’t pay the hotel for no-show crew members unless the hotel is sold out. So if the flight diverts or cancels and the crew never arrives, and the hotel has unsold rooms, the hotel can’t charge a cancellation fee. All of the hotels we did business with had to send a daily occupancy sheet back to the corporate travel agency. If the hotel was not sold out and we (the company) had no-show crew members for any reason, we didn’t pay for the unoccupied crew rooms. If the hotel was sold out and had rooms set aside for us and the crew no-showed due to a cancelation or diversion, we had to pay for all the no-show rooms at the contracted rate.

Source: At my last job, I was involved in selecting hotels for our crew members within the area I supervised. (Not actually negotiating the rate, just working with our corporate travel agency and local union contacts to decide what lodging was most acceptable in terms of safety, cost, location, amenities, etc.)

Depends on the airline, but I know many have deals with hotels to allow for the room to be in use at most if not all times. E.g. say a route operates daily and each day a new crew use the hotel for an overnighter with a 5pm arrival and 7pm departure time. The hotel would normally just have however many rooms always booked by the airline and then clean and service those rooms in the time between the first crew leaving and the second crew checking in.

I flew that route roundtrip last year and received amenity kits in both directions (and on two different planes). They were unremarkable. The best part was the zippered neoprene bag that I have found useful as a padded electronics case.

Two years earlier there were no amenity kits.

Great review, thanks. You mentioned "I assigned myself seat 4A". I have flown BOA for many years, including in September in business class on the route you took. I have never been able to assign myself a seat. Their web site is very basic, and there is mention of a business class. There is no App. The result is everything related to business class travel has to be done over the phone. Did you have a different experience?
Thanks

I am flying OB tomorrow to Buenos Aires. calls are disconnected to the US service line. Earlier they had told me Concourse G but comments here mention F. Anyone flown in the last couple of weeks to confirm? Is there a lounge at Viru Viru for the layover?