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Airlines

Avianca to spend $5 billion on planes to meet rising Latin American demand

Christina Jenkins

Photo Credit: An Avianca jet takes off from Rio de Janiero's second largest airport Santos Dumont.  Flickr / Joao Carlos Medau

Skift Take

Latin American airlines like Colombia’s Avianca have an advantage over international carriers that are just now entering the region, but they’ll need first invest in their fleets to match foreign carriers' capacity.

Avianca Holdings SA Chief Executive Officer Fabio Villegas said the Colombian airline will spend at least $4 billion through 2019 as it buys more than 100 planes to meet rising passenger traffic in Latin America. Avianca, which has total assets of about $4.5 billion, plans to spend $4 billion to $5 billion over the next seven years to buy 104 planes, including 15 Boeing Co. 787 Dreamliners, Villegas said in an interview. The plan is conservative under the company’s traffic projections and could be scaled up if warranted, he said. “We have to grow, but it has to be in a profitable way,” Ville

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