More Than 80 Weekly Flights Between Latin America and UK, at Risk After New Restrictions

Like a sad game of dominoes, the countries of the region begin to fall one by one in the decision to suspend their air connections with the United Kingdom after an outbreak of a new strain of COVID that worsened rapidly within the last weeks in British territory.

The governments of Argentina, Colombia, Peru, Chile, El Salvador and Jamaica are some that have already move forward in this regard since last Sunday night, once again impacting the aviation industry as it was just beginning to rise from the ground.

To date, there are 80 weekly flights between the United Kingdom, Latin America and the Caribbean by British Airways, Virgin Atlantic, TUI Airways, LATAM and Avianca, almost 70% of them concentrated in UK’s former Caribbean colonies, and the rest to the main cities in the region such as Bogotá, Buenos Aires, São Paulo, Mexico, Santiago de Chile and Rio de Janeiro.

This is the latest information available based on GDS data by Aviacionline:

UK airlines are connected by LATAM with four weekly flights between São Paulo / Guarulhos and London / Heathrow in Airbus A350-900 aircraft, and that operation is maintained for the moment; Avianca operates three weekly flights between Bogotá and London / Heathrow in Boeing 787-8 aircraft, but they are canceled as of today, as we anticipated in another article.

Canceling these operations only have a palliative effect if we consider the multiple connection options that passengers have to link both markets. Peru was ahead of the rest and will directly cancel all flights from Europe, while the rest of the countries in the region have banned direct flights, but did not advance on banning European connections.