The EquinoxAir brand name was unveiled in mid-November at an event held in Quito. The new Ecuadorian airline will be called EquAir, and will stand out for having national capital and for its focus on being a sustainable company.
The official ceremony took place at the Quito Metropolitan Convention Center, located in the Bicentennial Park, where more than 500 guests, including authorities, tourism industry professionals, businessmen, diplomats, and journalists, were present.
The company will initially have four Boeing 737-700s for both scheduled and charter operations. The first aircraft arrived on December 4, with the Ecuadorian registration HC-CXB, to Latacunga (Ecuador) from Lleida in Spain, after stops in Iceland and the United States. It will be at the facilities of the Aeronautical Industry Directorate of the Ecuadorian Air Force to stamp its livery.
The second aircraft will arrive in mid-December. Both were owned by KLM Royal Dutch Airlines and were retired in March 2021. The third Boeing 737 will arrive in May 2022 and a fourth in November 2022.
In a press release, the company announced that it had signed an agreement with Boeing that guarantees technical assistance, personnel training, spare parts, and logistics from the start of operations.
Airplanes will be configured with 12 Premium Economy seats and 124 in Economy, for a total of 142 passengers. The company will base the Boeing 737s in Quito (UIO), where they will connect to Guayaquil (GYE) and from there to the Galapagos Islands: San Cristóbal (SCY) and Baltra (GPS) in the first stage.
The first flight is scheduled to take place between Guayaquil and Quito on December 20, 2021 (five daily frequencies). Then Baltra will be added on December 23 with five weekly flights and San Cristóbal on December 26, with two weekly flights.
According to Gabriela Sommerfeld, Executive Director of Equair, this new airline will offer a “fresh and modern way to travel.”
“This opportunity, a very unique moment, allowed a group of businessmen, friends, but above all Ecuadorians, to consider the need that exists in our country to strengthen connectivity in our skies, in our cities,” she stated.
She added that the goal is to assist and complement the Ecuadorian State in “its productive development policy, to return that competitiveness in passenger and cargo transportation, to strengthen commercial integration”.
Niels Olsen, Ecuador’s Minister of Tourism, said: “From the first day, improving connectivity has been one of our main priorities. Boosting and enhancing air connectivity in our country is a major step towards bringing tourists and continuing to build the country of opportunities that we all want.”
The gap left by TAME provoked a war in the domestic market.
EquAir’s entry into the Ecuadorian market follows the exit of Tame, which left a gap in supply that the pandemic masked, but can be felt now as the business recovers.
The public company Tame, which covered a large part of the national territory, was dissolved last year due to a large debt and the impossibility of reactivating it after several years of attempts.
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Within Ecuador, there are three airlines operating: LATAM and Avianca which have added destinations to Coca (OCC), Cuenca (CUE) and Loja (LOH) to their network, and Aeroregional, a small carrier with connections to Loja (LOH), Guayaquil (GYE), Coca (OCC) and Galapagos (GPS) from Quito (UIO).
This past April also saw the launch of Ecuatoriana Airlines, which shares the objective of filling TAME’s void by operating three DHC 8-400s that were agreed with ACC Aviation at the Dubai AirShow 2021, an ideal aircraft for the geography of the South American country.
Without a doubt, the Ecuadorian domestic market will start in 2022 with great expectations. It should be noted that the Government of Ecuador continues to negotiate “open skies” in key countries, which would drive an increase in international frequencies and hence domestic tourism.
