According to Reuters, Avianca Holdings, the owner of Colombian flag-carrier Avianca, has canceled an order for 17 Airbus A320neos and delayed deliveries of 35 others by six years.
The 35 rescheduled aircraft will now be delivered between 2026-2028 instead of 2020-2022.
“The negotiation with Airbus is part of the transformation plan related to the simplification and optimization of our fleet that we started last year,” said Avianca CEO Hernán Rincón.
In February 2015, Avianca signed a memorandum of understanding with Airbus for 20 A319neo, 92 A320neo and 15 A321neo aircraft to renew their single-aisle fleet.
With this order adjustment, Avianca will be reducing its financial commitments by more than $US2.6 billion and preserve a cash position of $350 million for the 2020-2022 period.
On March 1st, Avianca Group announced the launch of its new regional airline “Express Americas” to serve some of their domestic markets more efficiently. For this, they will transfer the ATR fleet to this subsidiary and will initially cover six domestic routes currently operated by the old company.
Avianca will also make other adjustments in their fleet structure, including the sale of their Embraer aircraft. At the end of 2018, Avianca’s fleet sat at 190 aircraft, consisting of 10 Embraer E190s, 15 ATR 72, two ATR 42 and five Airbus A320neo family aircraft.
Avianca is separate from Avianca Brasil, a struggling carrier that filed for bankruptcy in December, although they share owners. Up until last month, the two airlines had been carrying out due diligence for a potential merger, but that process has been suspended.
Feature Image by didier durieux
nice work keep it up