Brazil's OceanAir will become a new Airbus operator in the first quarter of 2010, when it takes delivery of its initial A319 of at least seven.
Avianca chief executive Fabio Villegas says three of the 10 A320 family aircraft to be delivered next year from the carrier's 2007 order will be operated by OceanAir. Both airlines have been owned by Brazil's Synergy Group since 2004 and last year Avianca took over management of the smaller OceanAir, with its new chief executive, a former Avianca vice-president, reporting to Villegas.
Avianca in 2007 ordered about 50 A320 family aircraft. It now operates eight, and will have 16 by the end of this year and 23 by the end of next year.
The carrier was originally was scheduled to take only four or five aircraft a year but has been able to accelerate deliveries. "The crisis has provided us with an opportunity," Villegas says. "When we started this project [Airbus] offered only a very few number of planes per year, so it was going to be a very long process. In the crisis a lot of airlines have [deferred deliveries] and we have been able to accelerate dramatically the refleeting programme. We have almost doubled the number of planes we were expected to have."
Avianca's A319s are in a two-class 120-seat configuration, while OceanAir's will be in single-class 140-seat configuration. Avianca has used A319s to open new medium-haul international routes, while OceanAir will use its A319s to replace Fokker 100s on its densest domestic routes.
In 2007 OceanAir, which at the time had a separate management team, indicated it had been allocated 21 of the 47 A320s ordered by Avianca. Villegas now says OceanAir is only scheduled to receive "seven to eight planes in the short term" and the number of A320s OceanAir will receive will depend on market conditions.
For now he says Avianca is not planning to grow the size of OceanAir's total fleet and expects several of its 14 Fokker 100s will be replaced by new 100-seat aircraft rather than A319s.
Source: Flight International
