Little Bolivia is riding to big Argentina's rescue under a deal between second-tier carriers in both countries.
Argentina's airport magnate Eduardo Eurnekian has sold his 99% stake in AIRG (formerly LAPA), as predicted, but not to rival Southern Winds. He turned instead to an investment consortium called Aeroandina, which includes Argentinian businessmen and Humberto Roca, the president of Bolivia's AeroSur. Reports place Roca's stake at 30%.
Eurnekian has been threatening to bail out since January because he was dissatisfied with the performance of AIRG, which remains in receivership. Argentinian competition officials were also pressuring Eurnekian to divest his AIRG holding because his control of AA2000, the group that runs most of Argentina's airports, gave him a chance to favour his own airline. Eurnekian retains his 30% stake in Southern Winds.
AIRG's new owners have grand plans to exploit the equity link between their Argentinian airline, which may revert to its more familiar name of LAPA, and Bolivia's AeroSur.
Together, the two airlines only have five Boeing 737s and 727s, but they hope to create an alliance using AeroSur's Bolivian hub and open skies access from there to other nations in the Andean pact - Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela as well as eventually the USA.
Source: Airline Business
