The efforts to prevent the low-cost airline Viva Air from leaving the market did not bear the expected results and after a thorough analysis by the Superintendence of Companies of the last possibility that this company could take off, after being admitted in the process of reorganization on May 30The authority decided that it was best for it to enter the liquidation process.
(Also read: Viva Air cannot be saved and enters the liquidation process)
Beyond the implications for the company, its collaborators and the market brought about by the final departure of Viva Air, some experts point out that This decision leaves several lessons that deserve not only an analysis but the action of the Government itself and the authorities so that in the future, as far as possible, similar situations are avoided. or that it be possible to act as quickly as possible to find solutions to eventual crises that end up harming, in addition, the users of the country’s air transport.
A recent analysis by Andrés Palacios, an expert in Competition Law and professor at the Faculty of Jurisprudence of the Universidad del Rosario, published on the website of said university center, indicates the urgency that the country has to strengthen entities such as Aerocivil and the Superintendencies of Industry and Commerce (SIC) and Transportation, given the role they play in resolving critical situations, such as the one that occurred recently with Viva Air.
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For the expert from the Universidad del Rosario, “there are several lessons to be learned from this crisis that will culminate the integration between Avianca and Viva. In the first place, he shows that the rules of free competition and responsibility in the field of companies and transport cannot contain large companies or their market power ”.
EFE/Mauricio Duenas
free competition
Palacios makes it clear that the administrative actions that were derived from the failed attempt to integrate Viva Air with Avianca prevented the final decline of the first of these companies, nor can they prevent damage to free competition and consumers. In this sense, he points out that “it is time to seriously reassess both the scope of the rules and the state’s ability to enforce them”.
He also points out that this crisis experienced in the Colombian air market shows how important free competition is and the costs and risks that companies are willing to run to put an end to it, so the country cannot ignore the power they have the large companies, whom we choose without there being a greater offer.
“This crisis should lead the current government to think about what kind of change it wants to give and how it can give it. A little care is enough to notice that the Colombian legal system has several rules and institutions that would allow it to achieve the changes that it has been manifesting since the campaign”, insists the expert in Competition Law from the Universidad del Rosario in his analysis.
And he ends by saying that the Aerocivil, SIC and Supertransporte are too important institutions to be left in the hands of bureaucratic quotas who are unwilling to make the decisions necessary to enforce the rules and protect consumers.
What will happen to those affected by Viva Air?
