Viva

Review by eFreeware

If you fly Viva Aerobus with any regularity, the airline's own app is the most direct way to handle the parts of a trip that usually involve a queue or a printed sheet of paper. It puts check-in, a digital boarding pass, flight status and booking into a single free download, and it carries no ads and no in-app purchases. That combination is unusual enough among travel apps to be worth noting.

The app has been installed more than five million times and holds a 4.5 average from 87,656 ratings, which suggests a large share of the airline's passengers treat it as the default way to manage a reservation. It first appeared in January 2022 and was still being updated in October 2026, so it is an established tool rather than a side project.

What I find appealing is the focus. This is not a general-purpose trip planner that tries to organize hotels, rental cars and restaurant reservations. It is built around one airline's flights, and everything in it serves that narrow purpose.

One place for the whole trip

The core of the app is a reservation you can reach at any time. Once a booking is made, it can be added to an itinerary within the app, and from there the passenger has their flight details, travel documents and boarding pass in the same spot. The developer describes booking itself as taking seconds, and says the flow is the simplest and fastest in the industry, which is the sort of claim every airline makes and worth treating as marketing rather than a measured fact.

Booking is handled inside the app across more than 190 routes, with the payment options the airline accepts. That figure is the clearest indication of the app's scope: it covers the carrier's network, not air travel in general. If your plans involve a route Viva Aerobus does not fly, nothing here helps you.

The itinerary is meant to be the single reference point for a trip, which matters most on the day of travel, when juggling a confirmation email, a screenshot and a PDF becomes a nuisance. Having the reservation, the documents and the pass together removes some of that friction.

Check-in and the digital boarding pass

Check-in is the feature most passengers will open the app for. Viva Aerobus says it can be completed from anywhere in the world in under nine seconds, a figure I would take as the developer's best case rather than a promise for every booking. The practical point is that check-in does not depend on being at the airport or in front of a counter.

The boarding pass is digital and works offline, the developer says. That is the detail that makes the app genuinely useful rather than merely convenient, because airport Wi-Fi and mobile data are exactly the things that fail when you need them. The pass can also be added to a Wallet, which keeps it reachable from the phone's usual place for cards and tickets.

Together these two features are the reason to install the app even if you never book through it. A passenger who books elsewhere but flies the airline can still check in and carry a boarding pass that does not need a signal.

Managing the booking after you make it

Reservations are not fixed once they are made. The app allows a fare upgrade, extra luggage, travel insurance and a seat change, all without leaving it. For anyone who has had to open a browser on a phone, log in again and hunt for the right page, keeping these adjustments in the same place as the booking is a real improvement.

Travelers flying with other people can log in and add companions to their profile. The developer presents this as the easy way to travel with family and friends, and it is the feature that turns the app from a personal tool into something one person can use on behalf of a group. Whether that means managing everyone's check-in or simply keeping their details on file, the intent is to avoid re-entering the same information for each trip.

There is also a loyalty layer. Logging in lets a passenger collect Doters points on purchases, move up levels and reach benefits reserved for members. Points accrue on purchases, so the program rewards people who book through the app rather than those who only use it to check in.

Flight status and real-time alerts

The app provides detailed flight status information and lets a passenger subscribe to real-time alerts, with step-by-step tracking from the phone. On a travel day this is often more valuable than the booking tools, since a delay or a gate change is the thing most likely to disrupt plans.

Alerts are the part I would set up before leaving for the airport. Rather than refreshing a status page at intervals, a passenger can let the app tell them when something changes, which is easier to trust than memory.

Recent updates have brought fixes and improvements based on user feedback, so the app is being maintained. That is a modest signal, but a relevant one for a tool people rely on at the airport.

What it asks of you

The app is free to download, shows no ads and offers no in-app purchases, so there is no paid tier to weigh against the free one. The app appears to be free, with no subscription needed for the features described.

The trade-off is scope. This is one airline's app, tied to its routes and its loyalty program, and the value it delivers depends on flying that airline. A traveler whose itinerary is spread across several carriers will not find a use for most of it.

Some features also assume an account. Adding companions and collecting Doters points both require logging in, so a passenger who wants those parts of the app has to create and use a profile rather than simply entering a booking reference. Check-in and the boarding pass are the parts that matter to the occasional traveler, and they are the reason the app earns space on a phone even for someone who flies rarely.

A fit for regular Viva Aerobus passengers

The clearest audience is anyone who flies Viva Aerobus more than once in a while. For them the app replaces a set of small annoyances: printing a pass, queuing at a counter, checking a website for a gate change, and re-entering passenger details for each booking. The offline boarding pass alone justifies the install for a frequent flyer, since it removes a dependency on airport connectivity at the worst possible moment.

A second group is people who book the airline's flights for others. Adding companions to a profile is designed for exactly that situation, and it saves the repetitive work of filling in the same names and details trip after trip.

Travelers who only occasionally take one of the airline's routes will still get something from it, mainly check-in and the boarding pass, though the booking and loyalty features will matter less. Anyone whose flying is spread across multiple airlines should judge it on the single-carrier scope, because that is what it is built to serve.

Worth installing before your next Viva flight

Viva is a focused, free tool that does the jobs an airline app should do: check-in, a boarding pass that works without a connection, booking across the carrier's routes, post-booking changes, flight status with alerts, companion management and a loyalty program. It is not a general travel companion, and it does not pretend to be.

I would install it before a flight rather than at the airport, so check-in and the boarding pass are ready in advance. For regular passengers of the airline, and for anyone organizing a trip on behalf of others, it is an easy recommendation. For everyone else, the value depends entirely on how often Viva Aerobus appears in their plans.

What's new in version 2.65.1

We keep optimizing our app with our users’ feedback. We’ve solved some errors and made improvements to bring you the best possible experience. Flying is easier with Viva!