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I am seriously considering moving to CR and have spent the past eight months trying to practice due diligence about the culture, climate, and government. One piece of advice that I have seen in various unbiased web sites and books is that is wise to visit different areas of the country at different times of the year to get an idea of what conditions are like. For me this means flying down several times from Chicago.
I’ve checked out Travelocity, Expedia, and Cheap Tickets and to my exasperation, I found that there are no direct flights to San Jose from Chicago. You can’t get there from here. You have to transfer to a connecting flight in Atlanta. This usually means a wait between flights of anywhere from an hour and a half to six hours. Ditto on the return trip. I guess that this also adds to the price of the ticket.
Does anyone know if this is a permanent situation? Are there plans to increase the number of cities with direct flights to CR? Is this situation due to the airlines (Delta’s home base is Atlanta, but other airlines also seem to require an Atlanta connection) or is this a policy determined by the CR government?
Seeing as I would probably be making this trip on a yearly basis if I do buy property in Costa Rica, I would really prefer flying nonstop from Chicago. If there is some ongoing effort to make this happen (petition, etc.) I would like to participate.
You’re right — you can’t get there from where you are nonstop. And neither can I get there nonstop from Denver, and no there aren’t any petitions that will change this. It’s just the way it is. Your problem is that you live in Chicago. If you lived in Atlanta, Houston, Dallas, Miami, Los angeles, or Phoenix you could go nonstop.
I live in California and there are lots of places I can’t get to in the USA by flying direct. It is the result of the hub and spoke system that the airlines use – fly everyone into the hub from the spoke and then fly them from the hub to the spoke. Of couse, first spoke being your origin and second spoke your destination.
I can get to CR direct from San Francisco… hahahahahahahaha! 🙂
I have been flying for lots of years to Costa Rica, Used United, until last year United will not fly to Central America any more, not anuff money for them, So i will be going with U/A from SFO to CLT ,and US AIRWAYS CLT to SJO ,lotts of hours.
You can also get direct flights fro NYC area, I think you will be seeing more direct flights as tourism picks up. And it certainly seems like we are heading in that direction. We usualy connect in Atlanta or Miami and the lay overs are pretty short.
One of the pleasures of living in the beautiful Bay Area dwaynedixon. my husband and I are leaving from Los Angeles for Costa Rica next week. I looked everywhere for a direct flight and none could be found out of LAX. Appearantly all non-stops were discontinued to San Jose after April 1.
Hola Frank,
I airline speak there is quite a distinction between a direct flight and a non-stop flight. Non-stop is as the name implies, so if you’re looking for that to happen from Chicago to San Jose, it ain’t gonna happen.
Direct flights mean you stay with the same airline throughout the trip, but doesn’t mean you may have to go to another gate to continue your trip. It just means your baggage should (and I stress should) get to the continuing flight. It simply means you don’t have to claim your baggage at one airline and check it in with another to continue the trip.
So, Mr. hahahahaha from San Francisco can surely get a direct flight from San Francisco to San Jose, but he certainly can’t get a direct flight! He’ll have to make 1 or 2 stops in route.
I can assure you that the problem is not a conspiracy by the government of CR; they’d love to have as many non-stop flights as their main airport in San Jose could handle.
What Marvela said is true, and if you draw a line across the US from Atlanta through just north of Dallas, and on to California, you’ll see where you need to get for a direct flight.
There are very good reasons for this.
If you draw the same latitude line from say NYC through Chicago to San Francisco, you’ll get a perspective of the distance vrs the previous line.
From the Northern line the distance would require a Boeing 747’s fuel range to reach CR non-stop. The 747 requires a 3 man crew and 4 engines to make the trip, along with almost full passenger capacity to make the trip profitable. OK, so why don’t the airlines feed passengers into NYC, Chicago, and San Francisco to fill the seats for a profitable trip? Answer- can you think of any US airports that are more congested and have more weather problems than these? Second answer- you feed your passengers South where the weather is better year round and congestion is less a problem.
Keep in mind, when the weather goes to crap in Chicago and flights start stacking up, it’s easier to get out than in.
Getting in-In instrument weather, airlines must have enough fuel onboard to get to the destination, endure time in holding patterns, make an approach at the destination that will allow the aircraft to make a missed approach, fly at cruise speed to an alternate airport, commence an approach there and arrive with at least 45 minutes of fuel on board. Most of the smaller aircraft would be fuel limited, so most airlines will delay or cancel flights rather than sending the flight forward, ending up missing connecting scheduled flights or perhaps arriving at an alternate with angry people and the cost of putting them up for the night.
Getting out- If I’m going South to one of the aforementioned destinations, and if the weather there is, as we say, is clear, blue, and 22 (miles visibility), you take off without undue delays and know that you’ll be able to get your passengers to the destination on time to make connections. Matter of fact, you’ll probably be able to get there ahead of schedule, because the low pressure area that caused the bad weather at your departure airport will now afford you a tailwind aloft. So now you’re at one of the Southern connection airports and hopefully shedding your winter wear.
The planes of choice for the airlines for the trip to CR are the B 757/767 and Airbus 350. They have a crew of 2 and 2 engines (read as more economical), and are much more suitable for landing at the San Jose airport. You’ll see what I mean after you make your first landing there. You won’t find any 747s there I guarantee you. Don’t get me wrong, it’s perfectly safe for landing the smaller aircraft stated above.
So as far as going non-stop to CR from Chicago, give it up. I’d suggest you go direct to the airlines’ websites and do your own scheduling and figure out the best trip for you. Look at the flights out of Chicago to the Southern portals for non-stop flights to CR and compare the layover times for the trip.
We live West of San Antonio, TX and found a Continental flight to Houston to make our direct connection to CR. Flight time to Houston was 1 hour; we had a 1 hour layover, and 3 1/4 to 31/2 hour direct flight to CR. From Dallas, add about 45 more minutes.
Pura Vida,
Ben
Man, I am glad I live near Miami! For example: I get on Martin Air on a Wed. or Sat. at 8pm and arrive in SJO at 10 after 10 pm and all for 387.00 round trip.
Someone just mentioned this to me today, and I havent had time to check it out. Maybe someone here has some experience. He said it would probably be really cheap to take Mexicana from California to Mexico City, then from there to Costa Rica. Round trips from Ciudad Mexico to San Jose are supposed to be really cheap. Anyone?
Hmmm, I think I check out this route at one time and it wasn’t cheaper and it wasn’t shorter, plus you are then in Mexico City where all sorts of unpredictable things can happen. I also checked into flying one of the Costa Rica airlines (TACA maybe) that stops in El Salvador. In the end, the best routes from Denver were through Houston (total 6.25 hours traveling time, including a 45 minute layover to switch planes).
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