The airline said that from July 1 they will start operating a direct daily flight between Los Angeles and San Jose, Costa Rica.
This new route will complement the two daily services currently offered by Delta from San Jose to Atlanta and will be operated by a Boeing 757-200 with capacity for 180 passengers, with 24 seats in first class and 156 in economy class.
The Association of Tourism Professionals has joined other associations and chambers of the tourism industry together with representatives from Avianca-Taca in order to analyze the impact of changes in the routes of the airline.
A statement from the Costa Rican Association of Tourism Professionals (ACOPROT) reads:
The tourism industry warns of the damage that could be caused by the lack of nonstop flight connections to cities like New York, Los Angeles, Havana, Guayaquil and Quito.
A statement from the National Chamber of Tourism (CANATUR) reads:
Cancellation of Avianca-Taca direct flights is disrespectful to Costa Rica
• Country will stop receiving 8,000 direct passengers a month.
Following the closure of operations by Aeroperlas, Air Panama is the only airline operating in the Panamanian domestic market.
An article in Prensa.com reports that "Avianca-TACA group has no plans to revive the operation of its subsidiary Aeroperlas, which ceased working in March."
The Panamanian Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) currently does not have any application for operating internal flights, which could change when the remodeling of the airports Enrique Jimenez in Colon and the Rio Hato terminal are completed.
The market for air travel in Costa Rica is dominated by AviancaTaca and Copa, meaning that the margin of price competition is non-existent.
An article in Elfinancierocr.com further notes that "the cost of tickets is not always proportional to the distances. For example, although the closest destinations are Central American ones, for almost the same money you can travel to some cities in the United States; it is also more expensive to fly to Honduras than Guatemala, although the later is further away."
The Group Avianca Taca is expanding its operations from San Salvador with new routes which will commence to operate in July.
The airline announced that from July 1st it will have two new destinations starting from Comalapa International Airport to Quito in Ecuador and Cali in Colombia.
The San Salvador-Cali route will be served by an Embraer E190, with capacity for 96 people.
The route San Jose - Monterrey, Mexico will open in June, meanwhile the formalities are being completed to open frequencies to Montreal in Canada and Brasilia, the capital of Brazil.
TACA Airlines introduces a new flight to Monterrey, Mexico, served through the airline’s Connections Center in San Jose, effective from June 1st. Flights will operate three times a week with Embraer 190 aircraft with capacity for 96 passengers and convenient connections to and from Bogota, Medellin, Panama, Caracas, Guayaquil, Guatemala, San Salvador, Managua, Lima, and Lima’s hub of Porto Alegre , among others.
The airline will have 4 flights per week from May, which will leave from the Juan Santamaria Airport in San Jose.
The Civil Aviation Authority of Costa Rica reported that starting from May, the airline TACA, a subsidiary of the holding company Avianca-TACA, will fly four times a week to Brasilia from Juan Santamaria International Airport.
Fabio Villegas, President and CEO of Avianca-TACA, arrived in Costa Rica on Friday to announce the new route at a press conference, reported Nacion.com
The airlines have agreed to implement code-shared flights.
Taca-Avianca and Aeromexico have agreed to operate a code share which will benefit the Colombia-Mexico market from the first half of 2012, and for the second half of the year, Taca and Aeromexico will code-share, and this will include routes in the Central American-Mexico market as well as South American-Mexico routes, thus giving passengers a greater choice of service, more frequent flights and more travel alternatives in the region.
The regional line of the Avianca-Taca group has justified its surprising decision by stating its need to rethink its business model in a changing market.
Although the cancellation of flights was made official on Wednesday 29th February, Aeroperlas Regional’s planes have remained on the ground from at least from the 24th, according to tour operators.
Aeromexico will add a flight to its San Jose - Mexico City route , and TACA is looking at launching three weekly flights from San Jose to Monterrey.
The TACA aircraft would fly three times a week starting from May from San Jose to Monterrey, Mexico, said the Costa Rican Tourism Minister, Allan Flores.
However, Claudia Arenas, communications director for Avianca-TACA "limited herself to saying that the Costa Rica-Monterrey route is one being analyzed by her client," reported Nacion.com.
The airlines announced the signing of the agreement which will contribute to increased flight options for passengers in the Southern Cone.
In the first quarter of next year, Sky Airlines will sign a similar agreement with the airline Avianca, indicated Fabio Villegas, CEO of Avianca, Taca, Stuart Ortiz, COO of Avianca-Taca and Jürgen Paulmann, CEO of Sky Airlines, in a press conference.
The airline will inaugurate a new direct connection from El Salvador and add more scheduled flights from Costa Rica and Lima.
As of August 6, Taca Airlines will operate a direct flight between Havana and El Salvador, three times a week, using a 120-passenger A319 aircraft.
Danilo Correa, the AviancaTaca Regional Sales Director for Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean, said: "This new flight will strengthen tourism and trade relations between the two countries and allows connection options for other major markets in the region. It therefore meets the needs of our customers. In this context we are pleased to offer this new flight. "
Being the sole operator of the Guatemala - Mexico route, TACA was able to charge more than $700 a ticket. Now that Aeromexico and Interjet have arrived, prices have fallen to less than half that price.
Last week the Mexican low-cost airline Interjet announced two daily flights between Guatemala City and Mexico City from July, with rates from $249 roundtrip including taxes.