After unsuccessful attempt and shutdown due to quarantine, Avianca seeks to add routes to Argentina

After the 2020 pandemic, and the total shutdown that all airlines suffered, A few days ago, Avianca asked Colombian civil aviation for authorization to operate the Medellín-Buenos Aires, Bogotá-Córdoba and Cali-Buenos Aires routes. The flights would be operated with Airbus A319 and Airbus A320neo.

In 2017 he started to operate in Argentina Avian Airlines, a franchise of Avianca Argentina which operated completely independently from Avianca Holdings (Colombia). It operated as a regional airline made up of the Brazilian conglomerate Synergie Group.

The airline was founded in 2016 after the division’s takeover Aeronautical synergy of the airline Macair Jet, property of Macri Group.

Following the acquisition of Macair Jet, the Synergy group entered into negotiations with the government of the then President Mauricio Macri for the constitution of a new airline which would be called Avian Lineas Aereas but which would operate commercially under the name Avianca thanks to a brand licensing agreement that would keep the new airline and the Colombian completely independent from each other.

It set up its air base at Teniente Benjamín Matienzo International Airport in San Miguel de Tucumán and it was in mid-2017 that it received its first ATR 72-600. However it took months to start flyingIt would be in November of that year that he would fly for the first time, connecting Buenos Aires to Rosario with two daily flights. And the same month, planes would operate between Buenos Aires and Mar del Plata.

Avian Lineas Aereas operated in our country until June 2019 on roads that linked the Buenos Aires metropolitan airport to Rosario, Santa Fe, Mar del Plata, Reconquista, Punta del Este and Termas de Río Hondo.

After a legal complaint by the deputies of the Victory Front Rodolfo Tailhade and Juan Cabandié, in 2018 federal judge Sergio Torres has filed for want of crime two of the parties in which it is divided court case in which seven aviation-related occurrences are under investigation. In this case, besides Macri, the deputy chief of staff at the time, Mario Quintana, was also accused of his alleged links with the company Fly Bondi which, like Avian, had obtained air routes from the government. The judge closed the part of the investigation relating to Avianca due to the absence of a crime.

At that time, the company had a huge financial deficit from the Synergy group on which it depended. As already mentioned, although it operates under the name Avianca, it does not depend on the Colombian group Avianca Holdings. Synergy Group declared bankruptcy in December 2018 with debts of $ 260 million.

Thus, he applied to the National Civil Aviation Administration (ANAC) for authorization to interrupt its scheduled domestic flights for 90 days, basing his request on his need to initiate a restructuring process of its regular roadmap and its economic model.

However, June 2019 marked the end of Avian Lineas Aereas which has never flown again and led to the resounding failure of the airline in the country. Once again, Avianca Holdings stressed that the regional airline was not part of the group and that their relationship was limited to the authorization of the use of the “Avianca” brand. In addition, the group said at the time that the international links it maintained between Lima and Bogotá with Buenos Aires would remain operational.

Before the pandemic, the Colombian company had 2 daily flights from Bogotá to Buenos Aires. With the new interest, he is looking to have 7 weekly flights that would connect three Colombian cities to two Argentines.

Another Colombian company that has shown interest in going to Argentina is Viva Air. How you already reported Infobae, la empresa low-cost incorporará una ruta between Medellín y Buenos Aires from 2022. Pero a esto buscará sumar 7 vuelos semanales desde el mismo punto de partida hacia la ciudad de Córdoba y, al igual que Avianca, solicitó operar vuelos entre Bogotá y Buenos Aires.

Ricardo sosa, Executive Secretary of the National Institute for the Promotion of Tourism (INPROTUR), declared that “these requests from Avianca and Viva are the result of the management that INPROTUR carried out in Colombia, in June, when we participated at the Feria Anato and that meetings were held with representatives of these airlines proposing precisely these initiatives ”, he also added that“ this first step officially confirms the interest expressed by the airlines and we must recall that these directions are those established by our minister in due time. Matias Lammens, to collaborate in the future increase in the arrival of foreign tourists ”.

The two airlines will have to wait until August 26, when the next public hearing of Colombian Civil Aviation will take place, responsible for authorizing or not these requests. In case of obtaining a favorable result, they must submit their requests to the ANAC Argentina in order to establish the desired routes.

These situations, along with other signs of air reactivation, appear to be the first results of a world gradually emerging from the crises caused by the pandemic. Tourism needs international planes operating in the country to start the recovery after the worst crisis in its history.

KEEP READING