At an event held in Bogota on the morning of April 25, Adrian Neuhauser, CEO of Avianca, indicated that the company expects Aerocivil to finally resolve the appeals to the integration process with Viva approved with conditions, an instance that would allow it to enter the failed low-cost carrier in order to “save it”.
“We consider that the conditions imposed by Aerocivil do not recognize that Viva does not fly,” said Neuhauser, who added that “it is increasingly difficult to recover the company” while it loses aircraft contracts and employees who migrate to other companies.
“We are asking for a reconsideration of the conditionalities. Hopefully they will authorize us to revive Viva, which is the company that introduced the low-cost model in Colombia and forced us to change our business model,” he said.
“If the decision is consistent with the appeal and takes into account the modifications to the conditionalities, we will go in quickly to see how we get Viva going again. Initially, we would engage Viva to fly on behalf of avianca and then we could move forward looking at the accretions and start the enforcement process, which will be lengthy.”
Regarding the passenger protection process, Neuhauser indicated that currently 1.3% of the total seats occupied on Avianca flights correspond to passengers with original Viva tickets.
Buenos Aires, a challenging route
“We would love to be allowed to expand our frequency to Buenos Aires. One of the routes where we had the most difficulties protecting Viva passengers was Ezeiza-Bogotá, because occupancy on the route is already over 90% and the margin to expand operations is very scarce.”
Speaking of the incorporation of Jetsmart Colombia, Neuhauser indicated that they welcome the new operator, while requesting that Aerocivil closely follow the certification process: “we believe that competition is healthy and they are welcome; the only thing we ask is that the authorities keep the playing field level.”
