Browsing Tag: San Jose

A Nature Air De Havilland Canada DHC-6-300 Twin Otter/VistaLiner at La Managua Airport, Quepos, Costa Rica - Photo: Daniel T Jones

A Nature Air De Havilland Canada DHC-6-300 Twin Otter/VistaLiner at La Managua Airport, Quepos, Costa Rica – Photo: Daniel T Jones

It is easy to find travel sites touting Costa Rica as the new Hawaii for tropical vacation destinations. I had intended to test this theory for some time, and see some sloths and monkeys in the process. Having found a discount fare for my girlfriend and me from Tijuana to San Jos via Guadalajara, my AvGeek/travel skills were put to use to figure out how to get from the Costa Rican capital of San Jos to our intended destination, the Pacific coast town of Quepos.

A nice view of Volcán Arenal through the captain's sun visor - Photo: Daniel T Jones

A nice view of Volcán Arenal through the captain’s sun visor – Photo: Daniel T Jones

NATURE AIR: Background & Aircraft

Ten seconds of Googling later, it was readily apparent that roads, road travel, car rentals, and long distance bus service in the country were less than ideal. Not expecting to find many other options, as Costa Rica is a very small country (roughly 80% the size of West Virginia), I was pleasantly surprised to find not one, but two, choices for domestic air travel in the region. SANSA Airlines (Servicios Areos Nacionales S.A.) operates a fleet of eight Cessna 208B Grand Caravans from its hub at Juan Santamarà­a International Airport (SJO/MROC). As nice as a ride in a C208 sounds, I decided to go with SANSA’s main competitor, Nature Air.

I chose Nature Air for a few reasons, the most important being that they fly the De Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter 300, as well as a few Cessna 208Bs – but more on their fleet later. Specifically, they operate the ’œVistaLiner’ model, with oversized windows. As if that weren’t enough to choose them, they have some of the most amazing aircraft liveries you’ll ever see!

ANA Boeing 787 at Paine Field. Photo by David Parker Brown.

ANA Boeing 787 at Paine Field. Photo by David Parker Brown.

As 787s around the world return to the sky after the infamous battery incident, airlines work to get their aircraft back to full utilization.  United Airlines resumed domestic services between its major hubs of Houston, Chicago & San Francisco, while Qatar Airways returned their Dreamliner to their short Dubai route before starting service back up to London.  All Nippon Airways (ANA), which currently operates the largest 787 fleet of 18 aircraft, will start putting their 787s back to service starting June 1.

Prior to the battery incidents, ANA  operates two Dreamliner flights to North America: Seattle (SEA) and San Jose (SJC).  Once the grounding came into effect both routes were suspended and the industry speculated what would happen to the destinations.  Other 787 services like Frankfurt & Beijing (both served from Tokyo Haneda) were changed to other aircraft to keep them active. Would SJC and SEA remain 787 destinations? Yes and no.