WTE Miami 2023: Avianca presented details about its connectivity in LATAM

Within the framework of the international tourism and travel event World Travel Expo Miami 2023, held from June 13 to 15 at the Miami Airport Convention Center, Travel2latam had the opportunity to speak with Rolando Damas, General Director of Avianca for Latin America.

What is Avianca's situation from an operational point of view and what plans do you have for the region?

After the pandemic, demand began to reactivate in a very important way, and obviously we have adapted to add capacity as a result of this reactivation. For example, the segment that was reactivated first was that of the passenger who wanted to travel to reunite with their family or friends, then tourism in the vacation segment followed, and we are still waiting for the corporate segment, which has been reactivated a bit but is still missing. So we have adapted to this demand and have put up to 14 daily flights from Miami for the summer some days of the week, and we are also adding temporary routes, for example to Santa Marta, Colombia. 

We also have four daily flights from Bogotá to Miami and we have new routes to Central America, for example: Las Vegas-Salvador, Boston-Salvador, and last March we started Boston-Bogotá. We also have a Toronto-Bogotá connection and we are increasing capacity in general, since growth has been very good. That's why we scaled up aisle planes and added chairs to them to add capacity. We have also launched different products such as the purchase of suitcases, where the passenger decides the trip to suit them and if they want to take a backpack, they will only pay a base rate and if not, they can add the suitcase they want, so that is a way of adapting what the customer is willing to pay.

There is a new program that is being implemented in the airlines, which is the NDC. Has Avianca already adopted it?

Yes, in fact we were the first line in Latin America to implement it on August 1st of last year, and it has been a success as the agencies have been connected by what the NDC does, which is the set of new technical communication standards for distribute airline fares and services. We have worked very closely with the Global Distribution Systems (GDS), because they have embraced the technology and have implemented aggregators so that agencies can connect with airlines. However, we are still in the process, since not everyone has been able to connect for various reasons. In fact, we organize seminars with all travel agencies globally to explain how the system works. We do these web meetings because each airline is different,

What actions is Avianca taking with respect to sustainability?

Only densification already helps sustainability, because by densifying the planes we lower the carbon emission per passenger by 15%, that is, only by putting 30 more seats on the planes there is less emission. Additionally, we have an order for 88 state-of-the-art aircraft that generate fuel savings of 20% compared to a regular aircraft. Regarding climate change, they gave us an award and we were categorized as a B classification in Latin America as one of the airlines with the most momentum in the climate issue with respect to all the actions we are doing.

Why would you tell the passenger that they have to choose Avianca?

Because we are an airline with a very good product, a fleet of first class aircraft and obviously, in aviation the first thing is safety. Security is non-negotiable and we invest heavily in it. In addition, we adapt to the needs of the client and, additionally, we have a fairly wide connectivity and route network, with a Hub in Bogotá and another in El Salvador. We also have many flights from North America, for example we fly from San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston, Washington, New York, Toronto and Orlando, and we have many destinations and routes that connect via Bogotá and via San Salvador to reach Latin America. The safest thing for a traveler is that Avianca can take him where he wants, since we really have a very wide connectivity.