Chief executive of Latin American airline holding group Abra Adrian Neuhauser sees more customer-facing co-operation rolling out between partner carriers Avianca and Gol next year.
Abra is majority stakeholder in both Colombian carrier Avianca and Brazilian airline Gol, and recently completed the acquisition of Spanish carrier Wamos Air.
Gol has been working through a Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection process since the start of the year but, bolstered by a recent debt-for-equity agreement with Abra, is hoping to complete its financial restructuring by April next year.
This restructuring has complicated stepping up co-operation between the two carriers.
“One of the challenges that we’ve been dealing with through the bankruptcy is Abra’s position as both a creditor but also a significant equity holder in Gol, and just making sure that there’s no perception by any of the other stakeholders that we’re unduly influencing the company,” said Neuhauser, speaking during Avianca’s third-quarter earnings call on 8 November.
“What we’ve been able to do so far with Gol is be supportive on a lot of things that you’re not seeing behind the scenes, but that have been helpful to us in terms of, for example, joint purchasing of certain things during negotiations with certain suppliers and OEMs.”
He says customer-facing co-operation includes launch of frequent flyer programme reciprocity. ”We’re going to obviously significantly strengthen that going forward.
“Then as we look to integrate the networks more, you’ll see more of that come on. You should start seeing more announcements around that very, very soon.”
