Avianca will receive its first Boeing 787 in September, and hopes to deploy it on commercial service in November.
The Star Alliance carrier plans to operate the aircraft on routes within the Americas first, as it focuses on getting its flight crew used to the new type, says Avianca’s executive vice president and chief revenue officer Estuardo Ortiz.
“We will start off with Bogota to Lima, to Buenos Aires. But our real intent is to fly it to Europe, to Madrid, Barcelona, London,” he tells Flightglobal on the sidelines of Routes Americas in San Salvador. Ortiz says the airline hopes to deploy the 787 to Europe by early 2015.
The carrier announced recently it will resume non-stop service between Bogota and London Heathrow from July, operating on the route four times weekly with Airbus A330 aircraft initially.
Avianca will take delivery of four 787s by end-2014, and aims to operate three on revenue service by the end of the year, says Ortiz.
The airline has orders for 15 787s in total.
Source: Cirium Dashboard
