Colombia's
avianca has opened bookings for flights between Guatemala City and Miami, the United States, resuming a route that it has not served since July 2022.
Resuming flights on a competitive route
As flagged by
AeroRoutes , avianca has begun bookings for its flights between Guatemala City La Aurora International Airport (GUA) and
Miami International Airport (MIA), with the Colombian carrier planning to resume flights on the route in May. According to data from the aviation analytics company
Cirium’s Diio Mi airline planning tool, avianca last served the route in July 2022, when it operated four weekly flights with either an Airbus A319 or
A320. At the time, it competed against American Airlines (21 weekly flights in July 2022) and Frontier Airlines (one weekly flight in July 2022), with the two carriers still operating the route to this day. While American Airlines has kept the same 21-weekly frequency – increasing it to 28 per week in November and December – Frontier Airlines has had seasonal flights since 2024 and in 2025, with the airline filing its schedules up until September so far. avianca recently announced two new routes to the United States, including the new Dallas and Bogota connection.
Fluctuations
Cirium’s Diio Mi, citing the Department of Transportation’s
(DOT) T-100 data, indicated that all three airlines had wildly fluctuating load factors on the route between Guatemala City and Miami. When avianca last flew from Guatemala City to Miami in 2022, it averaged a load factor of 72.71%, according to Cirium’s Diio Mi, which cited DOT data. Load factors varied during the year, from a peak of 88.18% in June 2022 to 48.39% in February 2022, perhaps indicating the reason why the Colombian carrier decided to end the flights on the route. and Frontier Airlines’ load factors on the itinerary also fluctuated in 2024 (data available until November 2024), with an average of 87.64%. However,
Frontier Airlines’ average load factor between Guatemala City and Miami was just 46.82% in 2024. Bogotá-based avianca has no intention of increasing flights to Chicago just yet but admits that the new route is performing well.
Additional routes
The Colombian airline first announced its return to flying from Guatemala City to Miami in December 2024, which also included four other Florida-bound routes from various Central and South American airports. At the time, avianca disclosed that, pending government approval, it would launch flights from Bogotá El Dorado International Airport (BOG) to
Tampa International Airport (TPA), from Medellín Jose Maria Cordova International Airport (MDE) and Managua Augusto C. Sandino International Airport (MGA) to
Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport (FLL), and from San Jose Juan Santamaria International Airport (SJO) and Guatemala City to Miami. All five routes, including the subject route, Guatemala City to Miami, are now available for purchase on avianca’s booking engine. On January 7, avianca announced that tickets for flights between Bogota and Tampa, Medellin and Fort Lauderdale, and San Jose, Costa Rica, and Miami were on sale. At the time, Rolando Damas, the Sales Director for North America, Central America, and the Caribbean at avianca, said the Colombian airline had continued strengthening its connectivity from/to the US.
“We will keep working with authorities, airports, and partners to ensure the success of these routes .” On February 18, the Colombian carrier began selling tickets between Managua and Fort Lauderdale, with Damas noting at the time that the route underscored the airline’s dedication to connecting key markets and offering seamless access to the best destinations in Latin America. The five Florida-bound routes are still subject to governmental approval.
