While thousands of passengers from live air make efforts to solve the problems to reach their destinations both in Colombia and abroad, caused by the company’s decision on February 27 to suspend its flights, leaving hundreds stranded in air terminals, the Government, through the Superintendence of Transportation and the company itself are looking for ways out of a crisis that has been going on for several months now, but which broke out at the end of last month.
(Also read: What are slots and why are they key to approving the Viva-Avianca integration?)
The airline is facing serious financial problems, a product, among other factors, of the current economic situation in which fuel prices have skyrocketed, the high exchange rate and strong competition in the air market, which is why its directives are saw the need to leave their planes on the ground on February 27, harming more than 440,000 passengers who purchased their flight planes for the coming months, according to the exceptional Guillermo Reyes, Minister of Transportation.
From the company, its directives have been insisting that the most viable alternative to overcome the current crisis it is facing is that the Civil Aeronautics (Aerocivil) grant authorization for its integration with Avianca, a decision that has been expected since last year when the proposal arose to overcome cash problems that are currently on the edge.
(You may also be interested in: Viva Air is subjected to control and business reorganization is recommended)
But the fears of the authorities is that a dominant position in the market will be created that could have serious repercussions in terms of competition. One of the topics that are analyzed is slots, what are slots? These are the permits granted by Aerocivil so that an airline can use all the airport infrastructure necessary to land or take off at a Level 3 airport (such as the el dorado airport in bogota) at a specific date and time.
We are talking in terms of slots, between 6 and 8 planes at good times in which the alliance would give up Avianca – Alive, it’s not little. On the table, in addition to the brand, the low-cost model, is the fact of continuing with the shared codes of both Viva and Avianca with Satena to enhance their connectivity.
To make the business integration with Viva viable, Avianca assured that it is willing to return a relevant percentage of these and assign slots with assets -associated- to a controller, with the aim that other airlines can, if they wish, grow their operations in The Golden.
Also on the table is the brand, the low-cost model, the fact that both Viva and Avianca share codes with Satena to enhance their connectivity, the president of the troubled company said at the time.
ls Super measurements
But the Superintendency of Transportation came out yesterday to this situation and subjected Viva to control demanding a business reorganization, for which reason it established a plan with a view to the company being able to overcome this situation.
The authority will surely, as a first measure, suspend the sale of goods or modification of statutes without previously having the authorization of Supertransporte.
You will also have to present a recovery and improvement plan through which actions are taken to resolve critical situations that will end the cessation of activities. For this you will have two days, that is, until tomorrow, Wednesday.
Added to the above is the order to present a report that allows determining the administrative body or external agent that made the administrative and operational decision to suspend operations, in addition to the technical, administrative and financial analyzes on which this decision was supported.
It must also restore its administrative headquarters and communication channels with users who have to define the status of issued and confirmed reservations for passengers.
In the same way, Supertransporte said that administrators and employees will be prohibited from establishing guarantees that fall on the company’s own assets, alienations of assets and operations, without prior authorization from the Superintendency.
