Havana/The Colombian airline Avianca reported this Friday that “due to operational issues” it will postpone the restart of flights on the route between Bogotá and Havana, which it had announced at the beginning of May, without giving more details about it. The announcement joins that of other companies, several of them Latin American, that in recent months have abandoned their routes to the Island.
“The company recommends that customers keep their contact information updated when booking to facilitate communication if necessary,” the company detailed in a statement sent to this newspaper.
Avianca will refund all customers who had already purchased tickets to travel between Bogotá and Havana since the announcement of the restart of operations. The Colombian airline’s planes have not traveled to Cuba for four years and, at the moment, it is not clear when they will be able to do so again.
Last May, the airline had announced that starting on July 2 it would resume flights between El Dorado International Airport, in Bogotá, and José Martí, Havana with a frequency of six weekly operations. For this purpose, it had provided a fleet of Airbus A320 aircraft with capacity for 180 passengers, with which it intended to achieve an offer of up to 2,100 tickets per week.
The increase in connections between Cuba and Colombia announced by Avianca a month ago represented, among other things, the opening of a new escape door for Cubans seeking to reach Managua to make the journey to the United States from Nicaragua.
It was in January 2020 when the Colombian airline suspended its flights to Cuba after a few months earlier, in October 2019, Avianca Holdings established a limited liability company in the United States to obtain a loan, which made it subject to the regulations of that country. Shortly after, the US Government warned it of possible sanctions for its operations on the Island, since initially the company did not request the corresponding permits.
The indefinite postponement of the restart of operations between Bogotá and Havana announced by Avianca adds to the list of international connections that the Island has lost with countries in the south of the continent in recent months.
This Monday, for example, the portal Aviationline announced that the state-owned Bolivian Aviation Company (BoA) will suspend at the end of July the flights it offers weekly between the cities of Santa Cruz de la Sierra and Havana.
Another case is that of Aerolíneas Argentinas, which in January, a little more than half a year after it reestablished its flights to Cuba, the state company announced that it was canceling them again, considering that the weekly route via Cancún was not profitable, terminating thus the favors initiated in the Peronist Government with the Cuban regime.
In May, the response came from the Island to the Argentine Government, headed by President Javier Milei, after the notice that the state airline Cubana de Aviación would also suspend the regular flights it maintained with Argentina. The authorities then alleged the “refusal” on the part of the Argentine company Yacimientos Petrolófilos Fiscales SA (YPF) to supply fuel to its aircraft.
Finally, another connection that Cuba lost in recent months was the one between Medellín and Havana, which was operated by Wingo, the only low-cost South American airline that flew to the country and that, in parallel, will stop operating as of this date. Saturday. Colombian media have detailed that to date, the airline has not commented on the matter, so the reasons behind the cessation of operations are unknown.
