As the year comes to an end, Avianca
organized its annual press conference on Wednesday to reflect on 2024 and lay out its key objectives for 2025. During the conference, the carrier revealed its intention to increase services on its recently launched Bogotá (BOG) to Paris (CDG) flight from five weekly to daily.
In addition, it disclosed that it plans to announce additional flights to Florida next week. Finally, Avianca also reflected on its Bogotá
– Chicago O’Hare International Airport
(ORD) services that were launched in late-October, noting that while frequency increases were not planned, the route was performing well.
This article is based on the responses from avianca Group CEO Frederico Pedreira provided to Simple Flying during the Q&A at the press conference on Wednesday.
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Bogotá to Paris: from five weekly to daily
The service began on July 3, offering thrice weekly services on a Boeing 787 dreamliner. As of July 15, the carrier upped frequencies to five weekly, and since October 27, the flight has risen to a daily operation.
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Avianca is celebrating its 105th anniversary. It is the oldest airline in the Americas and the second oldest worldwide, after KLM.
It was founded in 1919 as the German-Colombian Air Transport Society (Scadta) based in Barranquilla. Scadta’s first official commercial flight occurred in 1920 from Barranquilla to Girardot, operated on the Junkers F-13 hydroplane “Colombia.”
In 1939, Scadta merged with the Colombian Air Service (SACO), forming a new company: Aerovías Nacionales de Colombia S.A., avianca.
In 1946, avianca operated its first European flight from Bogotá to London. In 1947, avianca established a weekly Bogotá-Barranquilla-Miami flight known as “El Colombiano,” which was its first regular service to the United States. The airline extended “El Colombiano” to New York in 1949.
In 1969, the newly inaugurated Avianca Building became Colombia’s first skyscraper. In 1976, avianca launched domestic demonstration flights with the world’s largest airplane, the Boeing 747 “Jumbo Jet
“Paris is moving to daily as of right now. As I was saying, Paris has been performing better than expected. We are seeing a lot of demand on both sides. What we are doing as well and what we are thinking about is the fact that you do have another operator on the route.
And what we are doing is we want to have a schedule that is very complementary to the other operator, in this case Air France with timings that are very interesting both on the outbound and the return journey. This has allowed us to have a route where initially the ramp up period was expected to be much longer, it has been a lot shorter.”
The flight times for avianca are listed below.
|
Sector |
Departure time |
Arrival time |
|---|---|---|
|
Bogotá to Paris |
13:25 |
06:40 |
|
Paris to Bogotá |
08:40 |
12:40 |
Air France
, meanwhile, has an afternoon departure scheduled for outbound flights from Paris, and an evening departure from Bogotá.
|
Sector |
Departure time |
Arrival time |
|---|---|---|
|
Bogotá to Paris |
23:55 |
16:05 |
|
Paris to Bogotá |
14:25 |
19:25 |
Air France also offers daily services on the route, according to Cirium data. It provides just over 10,000 seats each way with an Airbus A350-900, ranking just above avianca in terms of capacity which proposes around 9,000.
Bogotá to Chicago: “performed better than expected”
The airline returned to the route on October 27, offering daily services with an Airbus A320. It had previously operated flights connecting the two cities between 2018 and 2019.
“Chicago is another route that has been performing better than expected. We don’t have plans in this moment to increase frequencies in Chicago, but what I can tell you is that between all of the routes that we have opened or that we are opening this year, it is one that has performed better than expected. Let’s be clear: that doesn’t go for all routes.”
Photo: Markus Mainka | Shutterstock
As for most airlines, not all routes perform as well as expected. This is especially true for avianca which has struggled since the COVID-19 pandemic. The carrier entered into Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection as a result of the pandemic’s impact on travel and its financial stability, forcing a rethink of its business strategy
“We have a philosophy that, since the pandemic, out of 10 routes that we open, 7 or 8 will go good, perfect. But we have to continue trying to see which routes and stations we can keep. So these two [Chicago and Paris] are good.”
More flights to Florida
When asked whether the carrier was planning any additional expansion to the United States, the CEO told us on Wednesday morning:
“I hope that I can tell you next week but yes we have plans in the short term to announce additional flights to the United States […] in Florida.”
Photo: Vincenzo Pace | Simple Flying
In response to a Simple Flying question regarding the performance of the avianca network in the United States, Pedreira said:
“This year, with the United States we have seen at the start of the year it started a little bit weaker, but by the middle of the year until now, it is a lot stronger. It is the market that has performed the strongest. Mexico as well.”
In the United States, the carrier operates 249 weekly frequencies across 39 routes, it said in its presentation. 84.5% of its US flights were considered “on time” this year.
The response for North America is yes, it is one of those markets that is functioning well, and one of the reasons for which I think it is going well for us is because of our cost. Today we have a cost structure that allows us to be profitable in routes that would be unthinkable in 2019. So, you have a fair amount of passengers from the United States that are price conscious and we are achieving the right price on these flights.”
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High Demand: Inside avianca’s Growing United States Network
Miami is the carrier’s leading US destination.
Indeed, the increased focus on cost has resulted in an increase in passenger numbers. avianca says that this totals 17% more passengers last month as compared to November 2023. It also calculated that it was offering 15% more flights in November 2024 than in the same month last year.
