The Airline formerly known as LNA...
It's official! At a Press conference this afternoon in Bogota, Juan Emilio Posada ended the speculation over the name of the new Colombian LCC, their name? Viva Colombia...
As mentioned in a previous post, the majority shareholder is Declan Ryan with other interested parties being Autotransportes Mexicanos (these behind Viva Aerobus) another Ryan investment and Fast (the LNA holding company) accompanied by Inversiones Bolivar who are close associates of Juan Posada.
Although they were intending to begin scheduled services in October 2011, Fred Jacobsen the President of Viva Colombia explained that the capitalisation process would take about nine months to complete, and therefore they now plan to begin scheduled services in May 2012.
Initially the airline will concentrate on the 'trunk' routes in Colombia, such as Bogota to Cartagena and according to Posada they intend to offer "national coverage and join a number of points which today have no direct service in Colombia" which dovetails nicely with the philosophy of LCC's Point-to-Point routes. They also announced tentative plans for International flights to neighbour countries, once the national route structure is mature.
In terms of aircraft, Gabriel Migowski their V.P. of Finances indicated that they will choose either A320's with 180 seats in all 'Y' configuration, or 737-800's in a similar configuration with 189 seats. But he did not say when the fleet acquisition final decision would be taken. The most likely candidate would be the A320 as Posada operated a similar fleet at Aces and the top MRO facility in Colombia, Indaer International, has experience of the type. But maybe Ryan will have something to say about that?
Well, a few surprises there with the investors and the delayed launch, but this is one start-up that will be successful!
Cheers,
Mango Biche.