Avianca Returns an Airbus A330 and Further Reduces Its Fleet

The COVID-19 pandemic brought many changes to the airline industry. Many of the biggest airlines fell, and others took advantage of the big drops to emerge.

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This is the case of Colombia where Avianca, the Colombian flag carrier and one of the most important in Latin America, entered into a crisis which to date has not been overcome and there is not much hope of seeing again the same airline that used to be.

As announced, the Colombian carrier is not going through a good time, and it was even mentioned that there is a possibility of a merger between Avianca and the Chilean low-cost airline Sky Airline.

Although it is true that this news was later denied by the Colombian carrier, it did not seem so far-fetched, since Avianca is operating as low-cost. But to achieve the low-cost objective, the airline has drastically reduced its expenses, with the obvious deterioration in service.

In this new “Avianca low-cost,” the Colombian airline is leaving in the background the quality of service, comfort and modernity of its aircraft for what it had made a name, for throughout the continent, thus prioritizing prices, which would be cheaper.

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Avianca announced that its domestic flights in Colombia will now operate with a single cabin, which will have different seat configurations. The airline indicated that this change constitutes an advance with the process of implementing the new business vision to be an airline where everyone can fly.

In order to have a simpler offer to fly within Colombia, the company will market a simpler fare scheme of four sizes — XS, S, M and L — for flights to as of Oct. 20, which allow the passenger to purchase other services in addition to the predetermined attributes of each fare, including the seat.

Avianca is using narrow-body aircraft for long routes, ceasing to use large aircraft such as the Boeing 787 and Airbus A330 for these routes. With that plan in mind, the Colombian airline has just returned to its lessor (Aircastle) one of its widebody aircraft, an Airbus A330-200 with registration N973AV.

Since that day in the Avianca hangars in Bogotá, the technical staff has been preparing the aircraft for its return, among the tasks included removing the name of the airline.

Finally, one of its Airbus A330s departed on Saturday October 16 from Bogotá to Houston and later to Lake Charles, Louisiana, where it will be intervened by Northrop Grumman’s Aircraft Maintenance and Fabrication Center (AMFC), a division that specializes in maintenance and overhaul of Airbus aircraft.

This aircraft was configured to carry 252 passengers (30 Business and 222 economy), is powered by two powerful Rolls Royce Trent 772B-60 engines and is almost 12 years old, as its first flight was on November 18, 2009.