In the midst of the political control debate in the First Commission of the Chamber of
Representatives, the Minister of Transportation, Guillermo Reyes, reacted on the actions that the Government has taken due to the cessation of operations of the airline Viva Air and assured that in the next the country will know the decisions on the integration with Avianca.
In addition, the minister responded to the constant complaints from air transport users and the increase in ticket prices. Reyes said that in the country there is free tariffs and that it is the market that sets the prices of the tickets.
He also stressed that the integration of the airlines, Avianca and Viva Air, “is not of planes or capital, it is of the slots.”
Slots refer to a time slot that is assigned to an airline to carry out its activities at airports. The minister described these stripes as “the jewel in the crown”.
(It may interest you: Viva Air executives blamed “the pandemic and the increase in gasoline”)
“Aerocivil will make decisions very soon regarding the integration of Viva-Avianca. This integration is not of planes or capital, it is of the slots, which is the jewel in the crown. This issue is the great concern of the other airlines and it is the great interest in the issue of the integration of Viva and Avianca”, said Reyes.
In this sense, make sure that in the next few hours the country will know decisions regarding the integration of the two companies and hid that “the time has come to make a twist on how low-cost airlines are operating with ticket sales to the future and that, when it enters into a crisis, they don’t have anything to respond with”.
Seven months after the integration request between Avianca and Viva, the ‘low cost’ has faced great challenges to continue in the Colombian market.
Jaiver Nieto Alvarez/ETCE
According to Ayda Ospina, Superintendent of Transportation, since Viva announced the closure of its operations 2,373 complaints have been received in the entity, for which they adopted measures to compensate these travelers through the figure of submission of control.
In this way, the airline has until March 9 to comply with a list of measures required by the control entity. Failure to do so could result in Viva being fined up to 500 times the legal minimum wage.
Regarding the request for integration, the deputy director of Aerocivil, Colonel Enrique Avendaño, indicated that it is progressing as established by law.
(Keep consulting: After the Viva crisis, ask to analyze the financial strength of airlines in Colombia)
The last advanced administrative process was the receipt of elements that contribute to the process by interested third parties. With this, the air authority hopes to have a definitive answer by the end of March.however, before the law they have until April 19 to complete it.
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