I only watched up to the time of the crash then had to go to bed on Wednesday night. So I can`t speak intelligently on the conclusions drawn by the tv program. However when I was doing my ATPL`s a few years ago I watched another documentary on this exact incident. It focused on the ATSB investigation and more from the controllers point of view. This accident did change procedures over there.
When other contollers listened to the tape(the actual ATC radio tape) they all agreed it was apparent the aircraft was in fuel trouble. But the serverity was not highlighted. They also said had the aircraft used the word EMERGENCY,(which the crew never did) they would have handled the situation differently as it would have set off specific procedure to land the plane immediately.
I agreed with what the contollers said, from the ATC radio tape which they played on the program I saw, the pilots were not very assertive of specific enough about the dire situation they were in. And with the apparent work load the contollers were under that night, I sure that AVianca would not have beenthe only plane which was low on fuel that night. So how would they know who to prioritise