New Route: Is This The World's Most Painful Boeing 737 Flight?

The US has a brand-new route. On December 16, six weeks later than originally planned, the rarely discussed Boliviana (BoA) took off from Santa Cruz to Washington Dulles. Flights refuel in Panama City in both directions. It’s exactly the type of market that’d be featured in my celebratory Weekly Routes article (see the most recent edition).

Bolivia’s national airline deploys the all-economy Boeing 737-800 to Dulles. The market covers a whopping 3,655 nautical miles (6,769 km) each way. That’s 30% more distance than another new 737-operated route that began this week: Oman Air from Muscat to Copenhagen via Baghdad. It’s even longer than Kuala Lumpur-Perth-Auckland, on which Batik Air Malaysia previously flew the MAX 8. But it’s not quite the distance of SCAT’s Prague-Bishkek-Sanya MAX operation.

Welcome To Dulles, BoA!

Credit: GCMap

Until now, BoA has only flown to Miami, but its US network has doubled. Of course, the new Dulles flights exist to serve the tens of thousands of Bolivians and Bolivian Americans who reside within the Greater Washington DC area. It’s home to 35,000+ people. When extended to include all of Virginia and Maryland, some say it rises to 150,000+ people.

Yet, the figures don’t equate to traffic. According to booking data for the 12 months to October 2025, DC-Santa Cruz only had 24,000 round-trip passengers. Despite this, it was the US’s second-largest market to Santa Cruz, behind only Miami (84,000).

DC’s traffic volume was not that much for such a long service, but BoA will capture some traffic heading to other cities in South America. However, it only runs twice-weekly for a limited time. Its operation only exists through the festive and New Year period to January 8.

It does not have many seats to fill. However, advanced bookings might not have been great, as the operating window has shortened on at least two occasions. In the latest iteration, the final departure changed dramatically, from the end of February to early January. For now, at least, the route will return in June for the peak summer.

Over Ten Hours With No Entertainment Or Wi-Fi

Credit: Washington Dulles International Airport

According to Flightradar24, the inaugural round-trip service deployed CP-3204, which is a 16.9-year-old 737-800. Ch-aviation shows that it has 168 all-economy seats, just like the airline’s other 737-800s. Despite having seven frames, only four appear to be operational.

The 40-minute stop in Panama City brings the maximum block time to ten hours and ten minutes. That might not be disastrous per se, and I’d love to fly it for the adventure and for being so different. I’d also like to fly Oman Air’s new Copenhagen offering for the same reason, including because of its stopover in the Iraqi capital.

Both ch-aviation and BoA’s website suggest that no seat-back entertainment or Wi-Fi is available. Of course, some long-haul low-cost carriers have an even worse proposition, but they tend to use widebodies and have lower fares. In early January, BoA’s lowest round-trip fare is about $820. But Google Flights shows that it’s around $150 cheaper than the next-cheapest alternative, which is with Copa Airlines via its Hub of the Americas.

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A subjectively exciting new route will take flight this week, but can passengers endure the journey?

Credit: Flickr

Bolivia’s former flag carrier was LAB, which BoA replaced. According to the US Department of Transportation, LAB flew to Dulles, most recently in 2008. However, the same source shows it only filled 62% of the available seats.

Will BoA do better? Time will tell. But it will initially only have eight round-trip flights during Christmas and the New Year, with only 2,688 seats to fill. But if it does underperform (the data will be out later this year), expect its plan for the summer to change as its flights this winter have.