At 17:37 (local time) this February 13th, the last Avianca flight at La Nubia Airport, serving Manizales (MZL), departed after 29 years of service.
Flight AV 4853 with an ATR 72-600, registration HK-5039, marked the end of the Colombian company at La Nubia, it was the largest company serving Manizales with up to 5 daily flights. It shared the airport with Easyfly, SATENA, and Aires (now LATAM), as well as the extinct West Caribbean Airways and Aerolínea de Antioquia (ADA).
Avianca has been phasing out the ATR 72-600 turboprops, and in response to this decision has replaced the links with Airbus A319/A320 aircraft. But some airports do not have the capacity to receive medium-sized commercial jets, so the company is forced to suspend its flights.
La Nubia Airport
La Nubia Airport is 1,480 meters long, and the urbanization of the area means that only turboprops can operate normally.
However, the Colombian aeronautical authorities and government entities of the cities have been working to encourage other airlines to take the frequencies left by Avianca.
«This means a temporary juncture while, through the Civil Aeronautics in a work we have been doing since the second half of last year, new routes are assigned to other operators, and we can again restore the communication service with the city of Bogota, and even have a greater number of routes, managing to maintain the competitiveness of the region,» said Juan Martin Zuluaga Tobon, manager of Inficaldas.
Easyfly has two daily flights to Medellín/Olaya Herrera (EOH) and Bogotá (BOG) from Manizales. In March, Avianca initiated a codeshare agreement with the regional company. This will allow maintaining the destination in Avianca’s network, which also includes the cities of Arauca (AUC), Popayán (PPN), Quibdó (UIB), San Jose del Guaviar (SJE), Puerto Asís (PUU), Puerto Inírida (PDA) and others.
According to local media, the state-owned airline Satena is negotiating with the authorities for a service to Manizales.
