Last Updated: October 2, 2025
Domestic flights on small planes, also known as “puddle jumpers,” are available throughout Costa Rica and can cut hours off your travel time to remote destinations. However, after being involved in the Costa Rica travel industry for over a decade, we no longer take domestic flights ourselves and don’t recommend them to our readers and clients. In this post, we’ll explain why and what alternatives exist.
Overview of Domestic Flights in Costa Rica
Domestic flights operate from both of Costa Rica’s international airports: SJO near San Jose and Guanacaste Airport (LIR) in Liberia.
These small planes are most often used to reach remote destinations like Tortuguero on the Caribbean coast, Puerto Jimenez and Drake Bay on the Osa Peninsula, and Santa Teresa, Montezuma, and Tambor on the Nicoya Peninsula.
Airstrips are located all around the country in places like:
- Drake Bay and Puerto Jimenez (Osa Peninsula)
- Tortuguero and Limon (Caribbean coast)
- Cobano (southern Nicoya Peninsula)
- Quepos/Manuel Antonio (central Pacific coast)
- Nosara and Tamarindo (Guanacaste)
- La Fortuna/Arenal (Northern Highlands)
- Palmar Sur and Golfito (southern Pacific coast)
Most of these are basic airstrips without many amenities for travelers.
Main Domestic Airlines in Costa Rica
In Costa Rica, the main domestic carriers are SANSA, which has been in operation for many years and has the most routes, and Costa Rica Green Airways, a newer, smaller company with limited routes.
General Costs
Flights generally cost $95-160 each way. Prices vary based on destination and season.
Advantages of Domestic Flights
Cutting Travel Time
The most obvious benefit to domestic flights is the dramatic reduction in travel time. What might be a 7-hour drive from San Jose to Puerto Jimenez becomes a 45-minute flight. For travelers with limited time, this can mean an extra day of vacation.
Spectacular Views
When we visited Costa Rica as tourists years ago, before moving here permanently, we flew on small planes several times. We enjoyed the adventure aspect of taking them, but the views from above were also incredible!
Access to Remote Areas
Another major benefit of small plane flights is that they make some destinations much more accessible.
Tortuguero on the northern Caribbean coast is one example. No roads go directly to Tortuguero so you need to take a boat or plane to get there. From San Jose, the drive to the boat docks is about 3 hours then it’s another 1.5-hour boat ride to reach the village. You could instead take a small plane directly from San Jose, making the trip just 40 minutes.
Problems with Domestic Flights
Despite these advantages, we no longer recommend domestic flights for several reasons.
Reliability Issues
Last-minute cancellations are common with small plane operators in Costa Rica. Flights are sometimes delayed or canceled because of bad weather or some other reason. Not only is this inconvenient, but it can be very difficult to get a refund if this happens.
Luggage Constraints
An issue for some travelers is the luggage restrictions for domestic flights. These are small aircraft and, therefore, can’t hold too much extra weight.
Luggage is generally restricted to 1 checked bag at 30-50 pounds (14-23 kg), depending on carrier, and 1 small carry-on item. In some cases, you can pay more for extra luggage, but only if the plane has the ability to carry the extra weight. In most cases, the passengers are weighed as well to calculate the total payload.
Safety
The most serious concern that we have with small planes in Costa Rica is safety. The most well-known crash in recent years was in 2017 when a Nature Air flight crashed after takeoff from the airstrip in Punta Islita. All 12 people on board (who were on vacation from the US) were tragically killed.
We also personally know of several other deadly crashes involving small aircraft in Costa Rica, both of major and private carriers. Because of these incidents and our uncertainty about oversight of the industry, we don’t recommend domestic flights at this time.
For a list of aviation incidents by date, see the Aviation Safety Network’s Costa Rica page.
Alternative: Carefully Plan Your Itinerary
Instead of taking domestic flights, we recommend driving or taking a shuttle to your destination.
Often, you can structure your itinerary to break up long drives with strategic overnight stops. For example, when traveling from San Jose to Drake Bay (about a 7-hour journey via car and boat), you could stop in Jaco or Manuel Antonio for a night. This will not only break up the trip but will let you see another area of the country.
Our post Costa Rica Itinerary with Osa Peninsula is a good example of how to do this.
Being strategic with which international airport you use can also help. For example, if you’re planning to visit Santa Teresa on the southern Nicoya Peninsula, you should fly into Liberia, which is closer than San Jose. Then you can structure the rest of your itinerary to make your way back to Liberia or plan to fly out of San Jose and check out towns on the central Pacific coast via the ferry.
Need help structuring your itinerary? Our Itinerary articles are a great starting point. We’ve carefully crafted them to make sure you’re not spending too much time on the road.
Conclusion
While small planes offer a quick way to reach remote destinations in Costa Rica, the reliability and safety concerns make them difficult to recommend. Driving is the best way to experience the country anyway in our opinion because you have the flexibility to stop and go as you please. Some of our best travel memories in Costa Rica have come from those unexpected stops and discoveries along the way!
Have a question about domestic flights in Costa Rica? Ask us below.
Looking for more information to plan your trip? Check out these posts:
Costa Rica Transportation Options: This post covers the major transportation options, including driving, taking a shuttle, or taking the bus.
Transportation: View all our articles about getting around in one place. Includes info on highway tolls, ferries that can cut down drive time, local road conditions, and car seat requirements.
Safety in Costa Rica: Get general safety information on keeping your valuables and rental car secure plus helpful tips.
Health & Safety: Our Health and Safety articles cover lots of different related topics like drinking water safety and beach safety.
Practical Travel: Learn other travel basics like how to handle money on your trip, what to expect for weather, and lots more.
Hi! Thanks a lot for all the info, your blog is super useful! What do you think about Green Airways? The reviews online seem rather positive, and indicate that it is more reliable and client friendly than Sansa. They also have an external safety certificate. Thanks in advance! Olga
Hi Olga, It’s great to see any operator pursuing outside safety audits. We are not experts on the Argus Gold certification, but from their website, it looks like it’s a remote audit of safety management systems and maintenance. It’s their baseline certification – they also have Platinum and Platinum Elite. So it’s worth looking into further if the certification matters a lot to your decision. Our recommendation is based on broader factors that we laid out in this post, but it is nice to see an independent safety certification. Regarding customer service, it’s mixed with some people complaining about flights being cancelled last minute and delays. See their Google reviews. Hope that helps!
With respect, I believe the safety record of SANSA over the last 50 years to be very good and the road risk much more significant. The safety message on your website is misleading, without evidence and dispropotionate. An average of 5 air fatalities a year in Costa Rica compared with c500 road fatalities. As an average of the population, this is 15 fatalities per 100,000 people for road. Assuming the same measure for flights but based on fatalities as a ratio of all domestic trips = less than 1 per 100,000. People need to make their own choice, so I wanted to share the best evidence I could find. Appreciate not all accidents and fatalities for flight and road will be recorded, but I would have thought all SANSA would have to be by law.
Thank you for sharing your perspective. We appreciate that people need to make their own informed decisions, which is why we link to the safety database in our post. However, we respectfully disagree that our safety message is misleading. Just last month, there was a major crash in La Fortuna, where a small plane company (Fly Adventure Air) was transporting two tourists on a charter flight. The plane crashed after takeoff and was completely destroyed. It was all over the local news and on social media. The 2 passengers and pilot were taken to the hospital for injuries. Luckily, it was not worse given the condition of the plane. From our understanding, this charter plane company is used by high-end hotels in Costa Rica. People take the flight to save time assuming that it is safe without being aware of the potential risks. This post is meant to inform them of those potential risks. Here is a link to a local news outlet about that crash.
In addition, our concerns are about more than just fatality statistics. There are also customer service and reliability issues (you can take a look at Sansa’s TripAdvisor page and other online review sites for customer complaints), and after years living in Costa Rica and seeing how things work here, we wonder about the industry’s oversight in general.
hi i am thinking of a private transfer from SJO to Sierpe. I have been given an estimate of 5 hrs by a couple of operators but my hotel has warned me this is not realistic.
If I am happy to leave SJO (will be at an airport hotel) at 7 am, do you think I’ll arrive by 1230? Or should I leave earlier?
Many thanks for your help.
Hi Annie, under normal traffic conditions you can make it from the SJO Airport area to Sierpe in about 5 hours but most people want to make a stop along the way to eat, use the restroom, or buy a few things. Also, if there is any traffic delay (accident, construction, etc.) you don’t want to miss your boat. So we’d suggest allowing 6 hours, just to make sure and allow you to stop. Our private shuttle from SJO to Sierpe product, has more information about the ride and boat schedule in Sierpe.
In reveiwing the fatality stats here https://aviation-safety.net/asndb/country/TI, there were less than 15 fatalities in 4 crashes from 2019 to 2025, 6 years, from 1,000’s of flights each year. I have no doubt car fatalities far exceeed that number.
Hi Robert, Yes, true about auto fatalities but keep in mind that we’re not sure that all small plane incidents make it onto that website. For example, today we heard about a crash near Puerto Jiménez and Corcovado National Park and the fight was not registered at all. Here’s a news article about it.
It would be interesting to see if the statistics show that long drives to remote locations are more or less of a risk in comparison with flying via Sansa. We often fly to Golfito to cut the drive time to Pavones down. That long drive certainly has its risks. And the highway has been closed several times leading to long waits or huge detours.
Hi Paul, I doubt Costa Rica has statistics like that, but yes, it would be interesting to compare. We still think driving is safer overall, but everyone has different levels of comfort re: small planes in general.