Domestic air travel in Colombia is set to receive a massive boost and wrestle the domination of Colombian airspace from traditional carriers such as Avianca, Aerorepublica and Satena offering flights to more obscure yet no less important destinations at a cost of 23 per cent less than the traditional carriers.
Alfonso Ávila, the businessman behind the conception of Aerorepublica before selling it on to Copa Air has decided to take on the big guns and offer more routes to what he calls 23 “intermediary cities” within Colombia for 80,000 Colombian Pesos (US$40). Within a year, Avila hopes to have transported in excess of 250,000 passengers.
While he is offering the tickets at a lower cost, he does not consider Easyfly to be a low cost carrier in the traditional sense of the term. He wants to distance Easyfly from low cost carriers that are often a by-word for poor service, delays and dodgy maintenance. He insists that Easyfly will be of the highest quality.
After extensive research in air travel and routes covered in Colombia, Avila decided that the best way in which to create a new low cost carrier would be to focus on routes without big players competing for the monopoly.
For example, seeing that only one carrier – Avianca – covers the essential industry route from Bogota to Barrancabermeja catering to the geologists and businessmen travelling to and from Colombia’s most important refinery and the Capital, he decided that this would be an excellent place to start.
At present Easyfly has only two aeroplanes with a further two to follow this year. Easyfly will be using the cost effective British Aerospace Jetstream 41 with a capacity of 30 passengers. The benefit of using an aircraft of this nature according to Avila is that being small and easy to maintain one aircraft can operate various flights in the same day.
The reaction from the Colombian public has been nothing less than jubilant. Now, with a low cost airline offering services to alternative destinations they no longer remain shackled to 18 hour bus rides over harsh terrain and exposed to other problems that Colombia presents. Now, Avila, in the true spirit of entrepreneurialism has opened the way for many Colombians to return home in more or less 40 minutes.
The Colombian Aviation Authority has approved 13 routes so far and these will make up the first phase of Easyfly’s mission. The second phase will include a further 10 destinations.
Phase 1
Bogota to the following destinations – Manizales, Neiva, Armenia, Pasto, Yopal, Ibague, Valledupar, Arauca, Popayan, Villavicencio, Barrancabermeja, Corozal (Sucre), Cartago (Valle).
Phase 2
Medellin to Apartado, Monteria, Bucaramanga, Pasto.
Cali to Pasto and Monteria.
Monteria to Barranquilla, Bucaramanga and Cúcuta.
For further information see - http://www.easyfly.com.co/
