Avianca Brasil still sells tickets on routes that it plans to cancel

SAO PAULO (Reuters) – Brazilian airline Avianca Brasil, in trouble, announced Monday that it was canceling several routes despite the sale of tickets on its website, according to a Reuters letter.

The airline, which has attacked aircraft rental companies in bankruptcy court, said in a letter sent Friday to the Civil Aviation Regulatory Authority, ANAC it ended 48 flight frequencies – about a quarter of its capacity – due to a dwindling fleet.

This letter, which has not yet been reported, was the most powerful sign of the operational impact of a bankruptcy process that began in December by the fourth largest airline in Brazil.

The changes were scheduled to come into effect on Monday, the letter said, but the Avianca Brasil website says it still sells tickets for many of the routes it announced to ANAC.

For example, Avianca Brasil said in its letter that it would terminate flights between international airports serving the capital cities of Sao Paulo and Minas Gerais, but that its website still sold two daily round-trip frequencies up to the end of the year. in March 2020.

A representative of Avianca Brasil told Reuters that the letter to ANAC was only a preliminary draft and that it was striving to reorganize its flights in order to reach as few pbadengers as possible.

Friday, faced with the imminent resumption of almost a third of its fleet, the airline has issued a press release according to which some flights would be canceled on a case by case basis, starting with 179 flights between Saturday and Wednesday.

On Monday, Avianca Brasil canceled 150 additional flights from Thursday to Saturday, but did not make public its plans for these routes thereafter.

Currently, the company's representative said that Avianca Brasil operates a fleet of 26 aircraft against 36 a week ago.

ANAC said in a statement to Reuters on Monday that Avianca Brazil was required to "widely disseminate its canceled and altered flights" and indicated that, until now, the agency has not Had recorded no violation.

ANAC has already expressed concern about Avianca Brasil's ability to meet its flight schedule.

In court papers filed Friday night, it was stated that there was "a real and considerable risk that (Avianca Brasil) does not respect" its ticket sales, affecting "hundreds of thousands" of travelers.

The regulator issued a press release on Friday in which it said it had banned Avianca Brasil from selling tickets on the "routes concerned" without specifying routes and their duration.

Canceled flights entail additional costs for the carrier in difficulty, which must reimburse or rehabilitate the pbadengers concerned. In court documents, Avianca Brasil described as "brutal" the financial burden of canceled flights.

The airline is already short of money. It has missed its payroll in recent weeks and several Brazilian airports now allow its flights only if they receive payment in advance.

The carrier pays its daily expenses largely thanks to the short-term borrowings of two of its competitors, who hope to get some slots at Avianca Brasil airports – the coveted take-off and landing rights in crowded terminals.

The carrier's badets, consisting primarily of slots, are expected to be auctioned in May as part of the bankruptcy process.

LATAM Airlines Group and Gol Linhas Aereas Inteligentes have already agreed to bid at least $ 70 million each for different slot games.