Evelop Airlines will begin operating a new route connecting San Jose, Costa Ria to Lisboa, Portugal in April 2018. The airline will fly once a week at first, in a 330-300 plane with capacity for 388 passengers, “We have studied the Costa Rican market, and we believe in this great destination”, stated Diamantino Pereira, chief of Avoris (company that owns Evelop Airlines) in Portugal in an inter...

As the Costa Rica Star reported a few days ago, the General Directorate of Civil Aviation in Costa Rica, suspended the operations of Nature Air considering that the company currently doesn’t have the structure to operate properly and efficiently to guarantee the execution of the flight operations with safety; in particular since they are missing key personnel after the death of pilot Juan Manuel R...

The Directorate of Civil Aviation in Costa Rica suspended the operations of Nature Air effective as of today. “The General Directorate of Civil Aviation received copy on January 9, 2018 of the notification of the resignation presented by Mr. Jorge Valverde Esquivel, Director of Operations of the company Nature Air S.A.; this Administration is also aware of the death of Mr. Juan Manuel Retana ...

The Organism of Judicial Investigation (OIJ) in Costa Rica confirmed that the remains of the 10 U.S. tourists who died in an airplane crash back in December 31st have been properly identified and the remains have been released for their burial. On Tuesday authorities had already released the bodies of the crew members, both Costa Rican, and their funerals were held on Wednesday. The body of ...

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) presented a complaint this Wednesday to the General Directorate of Migration in Costa Rica for the delays that have continued to take place at the airport due to the slow migratory control; a situation that started occurring after the new system was implemented just a few months ago. IATA stated that when they received notification that the ne...

In an article published 4 days ago by Fox News, titled “Deadly Costa Rica crash highlights dangers of non-commercial tourism flights, aviation experts say” (//fxn.ws/2mdaTjd) James Hall, the former head of the National Transportation Safety Board offers Fox News’ Cristina Corbin the following remarks over a telephone interview: "These private tourist flights do not have the type of oversight a...

New Jersey is the destination of the month at Avianca Airlines; this route which was inaugurated in November by Avianca is being promoted with prices starting at $409.00 roundtrip. Avianca flights leave the Juan Santamaria Airport and arrive at the Newark Airport five days a week: Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Sunday, flights make a stop in El Salvador. The rate is available for ...

If you have been dreaming of escaping the winter in Canada and head to the wonderful summertime in Costa Rica, this is your opportunity, Air Canada Rouge, the low-cost airline of Air Canada just brought ticket prices down to $397.00 CAD ($319.60 USD) roundtrip from Toronto to Liberia. This is an amazing deal considering that right now it’s the high season in Costa Rica, and non-stop tickets usu...

The Judicial Investigative Organism (OIJ) in Costa Rica carried out three searches this Monday, January 8th to collect documents and information related to the airplane accident that took place December 31st in the area of Nandayure, Guanacaste and where 10 tourists died as well as the 2 crew members. The searches were conducted in the offices of Nature in located in the Juan Santamaria Airport an...

The Juan Santamaria International Airport in Costa Rica will increase the number of Migration control counters from 8 to 14 to speed up the process for passengers leaving the country. In the past few months travelers have faced long lines when exiting the country after the new migration system was implemented. In the past passengers filled in a paper form, and the process of checking the pass...

Costa Rica’s General Migration Directorate informed this Saturday that the weather conditions in the United States’ East Coast which caused the cancelation of several flights during the week is now causing heavy aerial traffic in the Juan Santamaria and Daniel Oduber International Airports in Costa Rica, saturating the services and surpassing the airports’ infrastructure capacity. In January 5t...

“Due to strong winds and whiteout conditions, flights at JFK have been temporarily suspended. Travelers are urged to contact their airline carriers for updates on resumption of service”, the information was posted in the different social media channels by JFK Airport, but prior to this notification, American Airlines, Delta, Avianca, among other airlines had already suspended or canceled their fli...

Avianca Airlines informed of the suspension of several flights to New York and New Jersey due to the winter storm Grayson which is affecting the East Coast of the United States. The press release confirmed that flights leaving from Colombia, Costa Rica and El Salvador to and from New York and New Jersey scheduled for January 3 and 4 and 5 have been cancelled. The airline went through the proc...

Enio Cubillo, director of Civil Aviation and Michael Soto, Chief of Plans and Operations of the Judicial Police in Costa Rica have stated that three elements are being considered as possible causes of the light aircraft crash that occurred on Sunday, December 31 in the mountains of Nandayure, Guanacaste: weather conditions, mechanical problems and human error. “We are not ruling out anything”, s...

The morning of Monday, January 1st, information posted by international media spoke of another family of four among the victims of the light aircraft crash that took place December 31st in the mountains of Nandayure, Guanacaste, Costa Rica. The list provided yesterday to the Local press were records of a family of 5 and 5 other US tourists. The Ministry of Public Security stated yesterday durin...

10 US Tourists, 5 of them members of the same family, Bruce, Irene, Matthew, William and Zachary Steinberg along with Leslie Weiss, Sherry Wuu, Amanda Geissler, Thibault Astruc and Charles Palmer all found tragedy today in Costa Rica, when the Nature Air light aircraft they boarded on route to the Juan Santamaria Airport, crashed 10 minutes after takeoff in the mountains of Guanacaste and exploded...

A light aircraft crashed in the mountains of Guanacaste this Sunday, December 31 at 12:16 p.m. According to initial reports by the director of Civil Aviation, Enio Cubillo, there were 12 people aboard including the crew (2), the aircraft operated a private flight apparently contracted by a group of tourists who apparently were staying in a hotel in the area. The plane took off from a local r...

The first flight of the South American airline Latam will arrive to Costa Rica on Tuesday, January 2, 2018 from Lima, Peru; this will be the first direct service offered by this company between Costa Rica and Peru. Latam will offer three weekly flights, Tuesdays, Fridays and Saturdays, leaving from the Juan Santamaria International Airport at 4:45 p.m. and arriving in Lima at 9:25 p.m. Flights ...

A power outage affected the Atlanta Airport, one of the most frequented in the world, for over 11 hours, this caused hundreds of cancelled and rerouted flights and thousands of passengers stranded. In a time of the year when the number of passenger increases considerably the Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport suffered an electrical failure at around 1 p.m. Sunday, December 17. The service...

Low-cost airline Volaris Costa Rica has provided all the details pertaining to the opening of three new routes that will connect Costa Rica to the United States. The first route will begin operating March 15 and it will connect San Jose, Costa Rica with Los Angeles, California, via San Salvador, this flight will operate every Thursday and Sunday going from San Jose to San Salvador and finally L...

Low-cost airline Volaris Costa Rica recently received the temporary permit to operate new routes between the United States and Costa Rica. Volaris Costa Rica currently operates 11 routes from Costa Rica to Guatemala, Mexico (3 cities), Nicaragua and El Salvador and has just been operating for one year in the country. Fernando Naranjo, general manager for Volaris, confirmed that they will be o...

The new digital system used in migration at the international airports in Costa Rica went down today causing long lines in both the Juan Santamaria Airport in Alajuela and the Daniel Oduber in Gunacaste. System failures are also reported in the national airports of Peñas Blancas, Tobias Bolaños in Pavas and Paso Canoas. The process to go through migration right now is being done manually which ...

The Daniel Oduber International Airport in Liberia, Guanacaste, Costa Rica, became as of Friday the first air terminal in Central America to be certified as carbon-neutral. In order to earn the certification the Airport had to first quantify the greenhouse gases that were being generated and then had to elaborate a plan to reduce this number considerably and also recover refrigerant gases. T...

The General Directorate of Civil Aviation (DGAC) saw many weaknesses in the way the Tobias Bolaños Airport is being managed that gave cause to irregularities and many times suspicious activities. So far this year the authorities discovered 27 unauthorized small airplanes in the hangars of the Pavas national airport; also, several cases of airplane owners trying to take fuel from the planes, ...

The Juan Santamaría International Airport will have a new terminal for domestic flights by March of 2018. According to Rafael Mencía, executive director of Aeris Costa Rica, company that administers the airport, the construction work already began and also includes the construction of a new firefighter station to the south of the main building. The domestic terminal is being constructed as a...

Mexican low-cost airline, Viva Aerobus, will begin operations in Costa Rica starting December 1st with the route San José- Cancún. The route will have initially a frequency of two times a week, Tuesdays and Fridays and only during the high season, with rates starting as low as $150.00. This is part of the expansion plan of Viva Aerobus that is already offering services from Mexico to Los Angele...

The Costa Rican government and KLM Royal Dutch Airlines are joining to combat carbon dioxide emissions, said the KLM press office. KLM is the only European airline operating intercontinental flights using biofuel. Over the coming months, the business will collaborate with the Costa Rican government in a first ever such alliance for the company to research the possibilities of flying betw...

If you've ever felt out of your element upon boarding an airplane, imagine how these marine creatures must have felt. A Costa Rican man arrived at the Juan Santamaría International Airport outside of San José, Costa Rica Saturday, November 4 with a dozen or so hermit crabs stashed into two Tupperware containers with holes poked in the top. A failed school science project? Who knows ... Costa...

Southwest Airlines inaugurated a new U.S.-Costa Rica route today to offer daily flights between San José's International airport (SJO) and the Fort Lauderdale International Airport (FLL) in Florida. The first flight for the new service left southern Florida at 11:30 a.m. today, Sunday, November 5, and arrived at the Juan Santamaría airport at 1:28 p.m. Southwest Airlines announced plans for ...

A migration officer at the Juan Santamaría International Airport will be subjected to an investigation by her superiors after she allowed one of the suspects in the halloween robberies that took place last Tuesday, October 31, in Escazú, to exit the country. According to the General Direction of Migration and the digital system “Migración Visible” detected the alert in real time; however, for r...

Changes to the migratory process when entering or leaving Costa Rica aim to increase the security controls and speed up the transit of travelers through the terminal, according to the Costa Rican General Directorate of Migration and Foreigners, the new system and process have been in place for a month. The director of Migration affirmed that since the new system was implemented they have regist...

In a video recently uploaded to Facebook, cult leader, Eligio “Nature Boy” Bishop, who has garnered a following of over 42,000 people on Facebook, claims his group of mostly black followers were racially discriminated against by Spirit Airlines who refused to deport the five U.S. citizens last Thursday, October 26, due to their body odor. According to Bishop, things got really real for the cult...

KLM launches its new direct service between San José, Costa Rica and Amsterdam, Holland on Halloween on its Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner, an eco-friendly craft. The service will operate Tuesdays and Fridays as of October 31, and then additionally on Sundays starting at the end of January 2018, announced the airline. The new craft consumes 20 percent ​​less fuel that the airline's other jets, gene...

One of Russia's wealthiest individuals had over $20,000 in cash seized yesterday afternoon, Thursday, October 26, 2017, at Costa Rica's main Juan Santamaría International Airport near San José when he was leaving for his home country after a vacation. Andrei Bokarev, 51, whose wealth is estimated by Forbes at $1.69 billion, had arrived in a private jet earlier in the week and participated in a ...

Hopping from one Central American country to another has never been easier, with cheap flights on Volaris, Costa Rica's airline. And the company just announced that your first checked bag flies free on regional flights purchased between now and November 20. The promotion applies to travel undertaken between now and February 28, 2018, as long as tickets are purchased within the time-frame of ...

The first space satellite developed in Costa Rica is a 10 cubic centimeter aluminum affair that weighs one kilogram. The milestone achievement was designed using the CubeSat picosatellites model - very small, lightweight and low-cost devices. The satellite will carry a computer, a communication system and a power system. It will also have solar panels and a secondary computer. When it arr...

This might be a good time to plan some travel on Southwest, with low fares on dates from now and into 2018. These low fares have been announced between Houston and Costa Rica on Southwest, $144 one-way from Houston-San José, and $173 one-way from San José-Houston. Other low fares are available in and out of Liberia, Costa Rica in the northern Guanacaste province, announced the airline. Pu...

The General Direction of Civil Aviation in Costa Rica invested this year ₵13.6 billion colones, (around US$24 million) in the local or national airports with the hopes of increasing the number of tourists that choose to travel by plane to the different national destinations, the plan is to invest an additional ₵7.2 billion colones in 2018. The funds this year were used in the airports of Coto 4...

(Photo Archive, illustration purpose only) The digital migratory system that just this last week replaced the paper forms at the Costa Rica international airports caused long lines during peak hours at the Juan Santamaría Airport, to the point were some of the lines were outside of the building. Apparently, the new control system denominated SIMMEL which is replacing the old landing or TIE ...

Global Entry is a US Customs and Border Protection program that allows expedited clearance for pre-approved, low-risk travelers upon arrival in the United States. This is the program that the Costa Rican-American Chamber of Commerce (AMCHAM) is trying to implement for Costa Rican tourists when they travel to the United States. Costa Rican tourists experience first-hand the long lines in migrat...