Aviacionline had access to an interview with Viva Peru’s Commercial Manager, Carolina Vigil, who disclosed Viva’s Peruvian subsidiary’s current situation and its plans for 2022.
Before giving further details of the interview, it is important to recall Viva’s history in Peru.
Viva Air Peru began operations in Peru at the beginning of May 2017 with its first flight from Lima to Iquitos.
The low-cost airline Viva Air Peru was presented at that time as a serious competitor in the Peruvian market, it was the first low-cost airline in Peru. The company began operations with 1 Airbus A320 aircraft, reaching up to 3 aircraft of this type, which were named Peruvian cities: Arequipa, Cusco, and Lima.
Thus, between 2017 and 2019, the low-cost airline began to increase its destinations network, operating up to 10 domestic and 3 international routes.
Regarding domestic operations, Viva Air Peru used to offer flights from Lima to Iquitos, Cusco, Piura, Tarapoto, Chiclayo, Talara, Jaén, Cajamarca, Tacna, and Juliaca. In reference to international flights, Viva Air Peru operated from Lima to Bogotá, Medellín, and Cartagena.
COVID-10 impact
The COVID-19 pandemic paralyzed the Peruvian airspace operations from March 15, 2020, to July 15, 2020. This air transport immobilization brought great losses to the airlines, hitting especially those that had been growing and betting on the Peruvian air market.
At the beginning of the pandemic, Viva Peru was growing. Its offer was unique in the Peruvian market until the arrival of Sky Airline in April 2019. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the company was forced to drastically reduce its operations in Peru.
In terms of the consequences that the COVID-19 pandemic brought to Viva Perú, Carolina Vigil stated that “before the pandemic, our growth plans had a different focus. However, the restrictions imposed by the government and the low traveler’s demand, especially during the first year of the pandemic, made us rethink our strategy. Today it seeks to provide greater connectivity to Peruvians and the region with the rest of the world, betting on their desirable destinations and the most common”.
Currently, the low-cost airline Viva Air Peru is only operating the domestic route between Lima and Cusco, and the international routes from Lima to Bogotá and Medellín.
This large operations decrease would mean that Viva’s plans with its Peruvian subsidiary would be to close it soon.
2022 in perspective
However, Carolina Vigil detailed that “currently at Viva, we have redesigned our commercial strategy, in accordance with the demand and needs of the market. Today we see a greater opportunity in international routes rather than domestic ones. For this reason, we have increased our capacity for international flights. We are increasing from 14 to 18 weekly flights to Bogotá, from 7 to 9 weekly flights to Medellín. Meanwhile, we continue with 18 weekly flights to Cusco. Now, Cusco is our only domestic destination, but we do not rule out the possibility of resuming routes in the future. We are always evaluating the circumstances according to market demand.»
Carolina Vigil adds that “Peru still has distance and schedule restrictions at airports, so we are always under constant evaluation. We currently see strong demand for the international routes we offer. We have very good results on the Lima – Bogotá, and Lima – Medellín routes, which led us to increase our flights between these cities.”
“For now, we consider Viva’s presence in Peru the correct one, fortunately, we are a company with a flexible cost structure. This allows us to make decisions quickly. It is not in our plans to close operations in Peru, proof of this is the increase that we have in our flights to Bogotá, Medellín and Cusco”, she concludes.
Regarding Viva Peru and Viva Colombia
Viva Perú’s current situation is contrary to Viva Colombia since the latter one has been actively operating 18 domestic and 7 international routes.
On this point, Carolina Vigil tells us that “2021 was very positive for Viva as a group. In Colombia, we opened new routes and grew strongly both in the domestic and international markets. In Peru, the situation was different. Due to COVID, the market was very closed, not only due to the restrictions imposed by the Government but also due to the behavior of travelers, who preferred not to travel by air, which affected the commercial aviation sector”.
Viva Perú is the leader in passenger transport between Colombia and Peru, and Carolina Vigil points out that “we currently have 27 weekly flights to Colombia, 18 to Bogotá and 9 to Medellín. With this, we are the leading airline in passenger transport between Peru and Colombia. At Viva, we are always exploring different opportunities, and we see many in the Colombian market, so we do not rule out to continue increasing our offer between these two markets, which can also be done through the Medellín HUB with all domestic and international routes.”
Viva Peru at Anato
From February 23 to 25, the Anato 2022 Tourist Event was held in Colombia, and Viva was one of its great guests.
Carolina Vigil stated that «Viva’s participation in the Anato 2022 Tourist Event was very successful. It allowed us to strengthen our relationship with travel agencies and corporate tourism. We have been developing products tailored to the different types of agency and customer profiles to have greater value in the tickets and fares offer”.
«In addition, we managed to get Colombian travel agencies to connect to our “Viva Agencias” website. Through hour web they can access our inventory in real-time and to many benefits,» she added.
At the Anato 2022 Tourist Event, Viva announced the launch of the new Medellín – Sao Paulo international route, which will have 3 weekly flight frequencies and will begin operating from Medellín on June 22.
New destinations
Likewise, Viva will start flights between Medellín and Punta Cana. This route will allow the Peruvian market to have a new option to travel to this Caribbean destination.
This route will start on March 22 with 3 weekly flights.
For this year, Viva’s plan for its Peruvian subsidiary is to strengthen its position on international routes. This represents strengthening connections with the Colombian market and giving more Peruvians the opportunity to travel to countries such as Mexico, the Dominican Republic, the United States, and Colombia.
This year, Viva celebrates its 10th anniversary in Colombia and its 5th one in Peru.
Despite being a young carrier, Viva has known how to bet on the simplicity and accessibility of air transport for all consumers.
The Fleet
In addition, Viva has the second most modern fleet in South America, and the fourth in the world, according to CH-Aviation, the leading Swiss air data platform.
Currently, the airline has a fleet of 21 Airbus A320 and A320 NEO aircraft with a special technology that reduces CO2 emissions in its operations by consuming 15% less fuel and reducing the engine noise by 50%.
It is expected that by 2022, the company will integrate 8 additional aircraft as part of its international expansion plan.
In this way, Viva advances in its international expansion strategy, giving its travelers the possibility of flying in the most modern aircraft in the world, with high standards of punctuality and efficiency. And, at the same time, by offering prices that allow more and more Peruvians to access transportation air as a possibility of traveling.
