Avianca CEO Frederico Pedreira said the Colombian carrier is close to adding a new destination in the southeast U.S.
Atlanta is the largest U.S. market Avianca does not serve, and the carrier already operates to Florida cities Miami and Orlando in the U.S. southeast from its Bogota El Dorado Airport (BOG) hub. “I hope that I can make an announcement next week,” Pedreira said Dec. 11 in Bogota at Avianca’s year-end press conference. The new destination would become Avianca's 14th network point in the U.S.
“We have short-term plans to announce additional flights to the U.S.,” he said, adding the new U.S. airport is “going to be in the southeast.”
Avianca’s most recent U.S. route launch was BOG-Chicago O’Hare (ORD), which kicked off in October. The service is being flown daily with an Airbus A320 aircraft configured to carry 180 passengers.
The BOG-ORD route “is performing better than expected,” Pedreira said. “Right now, we don't have any plans to increase flight frequency to Chicago.”
Pedreira said the U.S. market has improved as 2024 has progressed. "At the beginning of the year it started weaker, but from halfway through the year to now, we've seen it growing stronger,” he explained.
According to CAPA – Centre for Aviation data, 22.2% of Avianca’s international seats are operated to the U.S., more than any other country. El Salvador is second at 19.4%, followed by Costa Rica at 6.9%.
Among the countries Avianca serves, the U.S. in 2024 “had one of the best performances,” Pedreira said. “It's one of the markets working very well for us today. One of the reasons why we think this is the case is that we have a cost structure that allows us to be profitable on certain routes that would have been unthinkable in 2019. [This allows Avianca to target] those passengers who are price conscious that we want to attract to our flights.”
He said the carrier is also willing to experiment with route choices. “If we launch 10 routes and eight perform well, fantastic, but we need to continue experimenting and not stay stuck with the same routes,” Pedreira said.
In addition to Chicago, Avianca currently operates from BOG to U.S network points Boston; Dallas-Fort Worth; Fort Lauderdale, Miami and Orlando in Florida; Houston Intercontinental; New York John F. Kennedy; Las Vegas; Los Angeles, Ontario and San Francisco in California; and Washington Dulles.
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