At the end of March, the president of the ultra-low-cost airline Viva Air (Viva), Félix Antelo, announced two new direct routes between Mexico and Colombia (Cali-Mexico City and Cartagena-Mexico City), which would start between this and next month as part of a planned expansion strategy.
The announcement was made after meeting the due requirements in both countries. However, on April 13, he asked the Colombian aeronautical authority to suspend the first route, which was officially accepted 16 days later.
At the request of El Economista, the company explained: From Viva we constantly analyze the behavior and demand of our travelers and destinations, this is how the airline defined that the Cali-Mexico City route will continue its operation only with a stopover in our Medellin hub , from which travelers will be able to connect with our entire network of destinations, which is made up of 46 domestic routes in Colombia and Peru and 13 international routes.
At least until the end of March, Félix Antelo stated that in the short term it was not among his plans to operate from the Felipe Ángeles International Airport (AIFA), although he did not rule it out if there was an attractive offer to do so.
“Mexico is a very important country for us and we want to continue growing with an attractive price, service and quality offer,” he said then, which is why he has already requested authorizations to fly the routes: Bogotá-Monterrey and Bogotá-Guadalajara (the first is towards the VivaAerobus hub and the second is strategic for Volaris).
Viva Air, which was born 10 years ago and has a fleet of 23 Airbus 320 aircraft (it will close 2022 with 29), has a presence in the United States, Peru, Brazil and the Dominican Republic.