Avianca is continuing the process of restoring business class on more routes, further backtracking on a decision the carrier made back in 2022.
Avianca eliminated business class on most routes
For some background, in the past few years, Avianca has nicely transformed its business, by becoming a more efficient airline. As part of this, the airline eliminated business class on flights within the Americas as of October 2022.
Not only did Avianca reconfigure its Airbus A320s to remove business class and add 20% more seats, but the airline also stopped selling business class on flights within the Americas that were operated by Boeing 787s. Instead, these premium cabins were just sold as seats with more space, but without additional service.
With this policy change, Avianca only maintained business class on transatlantic flights to Europe. I thought from the beginning that this was the wrong move. The airline started reversing this in August 2023, and will now reverse the decision even further as of July 2024.
Avianca restores business class within the Americas
The first step of this reversal took place last year. As of August 15, 2023, Avianca restored business class on the following routes within the Americas, when operated by a Boeing 787:
- Bogota (BOG) to Buenos Aires (EZE)
- Bogota (BOG) to Miami (MIA)
- Bogota (BOG) to Sao Paulo (GRU)
- San Salvador (SAL) to Miami (MIA)
So a given route may have some frequencies with business class, and other frequencies without it. For example, Avianca flies a mix of Airbus A320s and Boeing 787s to Miami, so the latter flights do have business class, while the former flights don’t.
Now Avianca is taking this a step further. As of July 1, 2024, Avianca is restoring business class on select routes operated by the Airbus A320. Specifically, this applies to routes that are at least five hours in length:
- Expect to see business class on A320s operated from Bogota (BOG) to Boston (BOS), Buenos Aires (EZE), Mexico City (MEX), Miami (MIA), Montevideo (MVD), New York (JFK), Rio de Janeiro (GIG), Santiago (SCL), Sao Paulo (GRU), Toronto (YYZ), and Washington (IAD)
- There will be three rows of business class seats, and I believe this will be an intra-Europe style business class product, with economy style seats that have blocked middles
- In terms of amenities, the business class experience will include a meal, complimentary drinks, blankets, pillows, and amenity kits
This is a sensible policy change
I can see where Avianca’s policy change came from back in 2022, when the airline decided to just eliminate business class altogether within the Americas. The airline wanted to become more efficient and streamline its offerings. Since business class was being eliminated on narrow body planes, the airline decided it was most efficient to just not sell the product on wide body frequencies either.
However, from the beginning I personally didn’t think that made much sense, and I’m happy to see this reversal. The reality is that the demand for premium air travel has continued to grow, and I think Avianca was also losing a lot of transatlantic business class traffic to other airlines due to not offering business class on connecting flights.
The airline found a happy middle ground here, it seems. A320s are configured much more efficiently than in the past, but by having a business class product, Avianca can now compete better with premium travelers.
Bottom line
In 2022, Avianca stopped selling business class on flights within the Americas, as the airline tried to streamline its business model, in an effort to return to profitability.
The airline has slowly been reversing course on this decision. In August 2023, Avianca restored business class on wide body flights within the Americas, and now Avianca is restoring business class on narrow body flights within the Americas that are blocked at a minimum of five hours. I’m happy to see this change, as it should make Avianca more competitive in many markets.
What do you make of Avianca backtracking on eliminating business class?
