Avianca’s closure of its hub in Costa Rica in May last year opened up opportunities for other carriers, particularly US carriers, and Panama-based Copa. Adding capacity to San Jose, Delta launched service to Los Angeles, one of six destinations cut by Avianca. JetBlue launched service to Fort Lauderdale.
The Colombian airline previously considered San Jose as one of its four hubs but now calls it a focus city.
However, that may change with Avianca’s decision, through it subsidiary LACSA, to revive the San José and New York route.
The director of the Aviación Civil (Civil Aviation), Alvaro Vargas, confirmed in an interview with ratio station ADN 90.7 FM, that the airline will from March 16 reactivate the route with a stop in El Salvador.
Vargas also confirmed that the low-cost Colombian airline, VivaColombia has already met with Costa Rican authorities to explore the possibility of providing service between Costa Rica and Colombia.
In addition, the Civil Aviation director, said the decision on Costa Rica’s very own airline, Ticos Air will be available in June.
In the lat 2Q of 2014, Avianca dropped service from the San José international airport to Los Angeles, New York, Havana, Monterrey in Mexico and Quito/Guayaquil in Ecuador. (The Ecuador service operated on a San Jose-Quito-Guayaquil-San Jose circular routing). Avianca, previously known as Avianca-TACA, also cut back service to Guatemala City, Lima and Panama City from double daily to daily.
Avianca still operates 13 daily flights and 11 routes from San José.
