Avianca seeks to rename Aeromar as Avianca Mexico

Hernán Rincón, CEO of Avianca, has said that his airline aims to expand its presence in Mexico and Argentina. "We have found a possible entrance to Mexico through Aeromar, which is an existing regional airline and has the most precious thing that Mexico has to offer: slots at Mexico City”, he said.

"At the moment we use interline and codesharing, but we want to go further. I do not know whether to buy, to ally or to merge. The idea is to convert that company into Avianca México”, he said.

Last December, Andrés Fabre, the Director General of Aeromar, said that his airline will not become a low-cost or ultra-low cost airline, but will offer a different service, and that the name of the company will continue until the shareholders decide otherwise. However, it seems that Avianca will decide if Aeromar continues to maintain its own brand name.

Last June, Synergy Aerospace, which owns Avianca, warned that its planned acquisition of 49 percent of Aeromar is at risk, after detecting various obstacles, i.e. contractual and operational competitiveness, which leaves open the possibility that the 100 million Dollars acquisition may not happen.

Germán Efromovich, president of Synergy Group and owner of Avianca, said: "We intend to invest in a company with the talent, experience and reputation of Aeromar, with the tradition it maintains, but this airline will not get ahead if it is not competitive. The contracts and terms must be at least match those of the competition”.

In the case of the southern country, Argentina, Rincon said that Aeromar has already started flying there and that it expects its presence to grow. "This year, we will take delivery of two or four new ATR planes. And a minimum of four Airbus A320s will to fly to Argentina. We have done well there. It is a poorly served market and, therefore, it has been relatively easy to attract passengers”, he said.