This Thursday (20) an important step was taken for the return of Andes Líneas Aéreas. A new plane for the airline arrived at Ezeiza airport from Shannon, Ireland, with stopovers in Gander and Panama City.
The aircraft in question is an eleven-year-old Boeing 737-800. The Argentine registration is LV-KFW (Lima Victor Kilo Foxtrot Whisky) and it has a 162-seat single-class configuration.
See also: Delta increases flights to Argentina.
Andes Líneas Aéreas is expected to resume charter operations in Argentina before the end of the year. Regular flights do not appear to be part of the company’s current plans.
New Boeing 737-800s may be incorporated by Andes in the near future, although there is no official confirmation at the moment.
A brief history of Andes Líneas Aéreas
The company was born in 2006 as a solution from Salta to make up for the lack of flights by the then dying Aerolíneas Argentinas of Marsans (in the same context, Sol, LATAM Argentina and Aerochaco were born, year after year).
It had a slow but solid growth that allowed it to end its first year of operations with 94 thousand passengers transported, and by December 2011 exceeded one million.
That year it reached the peak of what we could call its first stage of expansion, which led it to incorporate two Bombardier CRJ-900s between 2010 and 2011, and even two Airbus A320s to meet the charter demand in the 2011-2012 summer season.
Complex times
In the following three years, its operation shrank sharply, returning to operate only with its own four MDs, having reached a low of only 96 thousand passengers transported in 2014. The first big blow was the eruption of the Puyehue volcano, whose ashes disabled the Bariloche airport for several months, causing Andes to be unable to operate charters contracted from Brazil.
These were very complex times for the company, which were not exempt from union actions and layoffs. The jump in the dollar between 2013 and 2015, and the exchange controls were a threat to the charter business, so that international traffic also reached historic lows for Andes.
Comeback
By mid-2015, the situation began to turn around thanks to the contract that Andes entered into with Travel Rock to transport fifth year students to Bariloche, which gave it an important breathing space, closing the year with 176 thousand passengers.
With the change of government and a greater opening of the airline market, Andes entered a second stage of expansion that led it to incorporate four Boeing 737-800s and add nine destinations between 2016 and 2017, years in which it mobilized 246 thousand and 641 thousand passengers. The boom in cabotage, complemented by the boom in charter flights abroad, led it to reach its peak of 1.02 million passengers in 2018.
New crisis
The growth seemed to have no limits, until the exchange rate crisis in the middle of that year hit its financial capacity to face the leasing in dollars of the 737-800, which added to the arrival of low-cost airlines, the liberalization of the fare floor, the rise in oil prices and an economy in crisis, caused the company to readjust its operations, get rid of the Boeings and have to lay off personnel. Two other important factors: the loss of the Travel Rock contract in 2019 and a millionaire debt from the province of Chubut.
From the last quarter of 2018 and until September of this year, passenger traffic was collapsing month by month. In September they transported only 19 thousand passengers, a floor not touched since May 2016.
Its network was reduced to Buenos Aires, Salta, Comodoro Rivadavia and Puerto Madryn, while its operating fleet before the suspension of its operations at the end of 2019 varied between one or two MD-83 aircraft and around 250 employees who were left in a labor limbo and owed salaries.
Pandemic
The last official communication from Andes about a potential restart of its flights had been in October 2020, announcing that this would occur on December 21st, but nothing happened.
In February of this year, a rumor emerged that Nella Airlines had been negotiating the acquisition of Andes.
The group had already bought Venezuela-based Albatros in July 2021, and in September completed the USD 50 million purchase of Bolivia-based Amaszonas Líneas Aéreas. In addition, in November it showed interest in reviving the LAP brand, Líneas Aéreas Paraguayas, with two Boeing 737-800s.
Falcon Vision is one of the companies linked to the Public Investment Fund (PIF), the largest public investment fund in the world, headed by Mohammad bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Deputy Prime Minister and current Minister of Defense of his country. According to what has been previously communicated, an investment of USD 350 million is foreseen once the Brazilian authorities finalize the authorization processes.
See also: Flybondi to add four aircraft before year-end and at least five more by 2023.
Andes Líneas Aéreas’ history seems to have a new chapter, almost three years after its last scheduled flight.
