A total of 261 TACA employees were laid off Friday in Costa Rica, due to the airline’s cancellation of five direct flights to and from San José, as part of the integration process with the Colombian airline Avianca.
Claudia Arenas, Director of International Communications and Corporate Affairs at TACA, reported that the cuts were in all areas of the company.
Arenas ruled out more staff cuts in the short term.
Starting today, all direct flights from San José a to Los Angeles, New York, Havana (Cuba), Quito and Guayaquil in Ecuador, will make stops in TACA’s hub in El Salvador or AVIANCA’s Bogota.
Direct flights from San José that will remain are to Caracas (Venezuela), Mexico, Miami, Guatemala, Tegucigalpa (Honduras), San Pedro Sula (Honduras), Managua (Nicaragua) and Panama. Also direct flights to TACA AVIANVA hubs in San Salvador, Bogota and Lima will continue.
On May 28 the TACA brand will disappear completely to be replaced with AVIANCA.
Avianca Holding S.A. is the Colombian airline holding company formed in February 2010 by merger of two airlines, being Avianca from Colombia and TACA Airlines from El Salvador.
The company is a subsidiary of Synergy Group, a Brazilian private conglomerate. Avianca Holding S.A. is headquartered in Bogotá. The company announced that it will be changing its name to “Avianca”, the rebranding is expected to happen during the first half of 2013.
The company is the second largest airline holding company in Latin America by revenue, after Brazilian – Chilean LATAM Airlines Group and the second largest by fleet size. With their modern fleet of 140 short, medium and long haul aircraft and a team composed of more than 15,000 Employees, Avianca and Taca directly serve over 100 destinations in America and Europe, which connect to over 750 destinations worldwide through Codeshare agreements with partner airlines around the globe. 18 million passengers were carried in 2010. The company main competitors is LATAM Airlines Group, Gol Airlines and Azul Airlines.
LACSA, the Costa Rican airline – (Spanish: Lineas Aéreas Costarricenses S.A. ) services are operated by Grupo TACA. Out of the five airlines that made up the original TACA alliance, Lacsa is the only airline of the group that still operates international flights with its own IATA code (LR) and flight numbers.
