Troubled Avianca Brasil will leave Star Alliance on 01 September 2019.
Avianca Brasil has experienced many setbacks over the last nine months. After filing for bankruptcy last December, it faced a prolonged aircraft repossession battle with creditors. Then in May its remaining fleet was grounded for “safety concerns” by Brazil’s civil aviation regulator ANAC. In June, the carrier’s operating certificate was revoked and it lost its slots.
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- Avianca Brasil Files For Strategic Bankruptcy
- United Airlines May Acquire Avianca
- As Court Orders Airline To Surrender 20% Of Fleet, United Watches From Afar
Avianca Brasil’s exit from Star Alliance will not impact Avianca, SA.
Star Alliance CEO Jeffrey Goh stressed that the departure of Avianca Brasil “in no way affects the membership of Avianca SA, our valued member based in Bogota, Colombia”.
A Blow To Star Alliance
The move represents a blow to Star Alliance, which now lacks a domestic and regional network based in Brazil. Star Alliance lost TAM to its merger with LAN, but added Avianca Brasil in 2016.
Star Alliance carriers serving Brazil include:
- Air Canada (Montreal, Toronto – Sao Paulo)
- Air China (Beijing via Madrid – Sao Paulo)
- Avianca (Bogota, Lima – Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro)
- Copa Airlines (Panama City – Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro)
- Ethiopian Airlines (Addis Ababa via Buenos Aires – Sao Paulo)
- Lufthansa (Munich, Frankfurt – Sao Paulo; Frankfurt – Rio de Janeiro)
- South African Airways (Johannesburg – Sao Paulo)
- SWISS (Zurich – Sao Paulo)
- TAP Air Portugal (Lisbon – Belém, Belo Horizonte, Brasilia, Fortaleza, Natal, Porto Alegre, Recife, Rio de Janeiro, Salvador da Bahia, Sao Paulo; Porto – Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro)
- Turkish Airlines (Istanbul via Buenos Aires – Sao Paulo)
- United Airlines ( Chicago, Houston, Newark, Washington – Sao Paulo; Houston – Rio de Janeiro)
These carriers combine for a total of 588 weekly flights from 11 domestic points in Brazil to 17 Star Alliance hubs.
United and TAP partner with Azul (United owns 8% of it)…it would not surprise me if Star Alliance was already talking to Azul about becoming a Connecting Partner.
CONCLUSION
This news is hardly a surprise for those who have followed the demise of Avianca Brasil. Still, this represents a serious loss of seamless connectivity for Star Alliance flyers.
Given the financial condition of Avianca Brasil, it’s loss of slots and grounding by the government, it seems that you are overstating the impact on the Star Alliance of them dropping out. They’re struggling and probably won’t make it long term. In fact, I am surprised that the Star Alliance hasn’t gotten Azul on board already. First as a connecting partner, then as a full-fledged member.
I’m talking about all of the above, not just today’s news. It is a loss, but hopefully Azul will take its place.
Rumors are already that Azul will join the asterisk. Which is SO much better than the ghost of Avianca Brasil. Domestic flights are the best over-all in Brazil and most will agree that the U.S. flights offer a much better hard and soft product to the U.S. With that they have GOT TO move from Campinas for Intl flights over to GRU. The 2+ hour drive is rarely worth the better service. With the Avianca Brasil slots available the opportunity is now there. It will also help with business class fares out of GRU as Azul tends to be more competitive.