Fast Colombia S.A.S., trading as Viva Air Colombia and formerly VivaColombia, is a Colombian

low-cost airline A low-cost carrier or low-cost airline (occasionally referred to as '' no-frills'', ''budget'' or '' discount carrier'' or ''airline'', and abbreviated as ''LCC'') is an airline that is operated with an especially high emphasis on minimizing op ...

based in

Rionegro Rionegro () is a city and municipality in Antioquia Department, Colombia, located in the subregion of Eastern Antioquia. The official name of the city is "Ciudad Santiago de Arma de Rionegro". Rio Negro means "Black River" in Spanish, as the cit ...

, Antioquia,

Colombia Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Car ...

. It is a subsidiary of Irelandia Aviation and third largest airline in the country. It is not legally affiliated with Mexico's

VivaAerobús Aeroenlaces Nacionales, S.A. de C.V., trading as Viva Aerobus, is a Mexican low-cost airline fully owned by the largest bus company group in Mexico, IAMSA, and was co-founded by and invested in by Irelandia Aviation. Based in Monterrey Internati ...

, a fellow low-cost carrier co-founded by Irelandia which also uses the "Viva" brand.

History

The airline is part of the ''Irelandia Aviation'' investment fund. Irelandia a leading low-cost airline developer, led by Declan Ryan (chairman of the Viva Air group and one of the founders of Ryanair). Irelandia personnel have been involved in the development of six low-cost airlines around the world:

Ryanair Ryanair is an Irish ultra low-cost carrier founded in 1984. It is headquartered in Swords, Dublin, Ireland and has its primary operational bases at Dublin and London Stansted airports. It forms the largest part of the Ryanair Holdings family ...

Tiger Airways Australia Tiger Airways Australia Pty Ltd, operating as Tigerair Australia, was an Australian low-cost carrier, low-cost airline. Founded by Tiger Airways Holdings, it commenced services in the domestic airline market on 23 November 2007 as Tiger Airway ...

Allegiant Air Allegiant Air (usually shortened to Allegiant) is an ultra low-cost U.S. carrier that operates scheduled and charter flights. It is a major air carrier, the fourteenth-largest commercial airline in North America. Allegiant was founded in 1 ...

VivaAerobus Aeroenlaces Nacionales, S.A. de C.V., trading as Viva Aerobus, is a Mexican low-cost airline fully owned by the largest bus company group in Mexico, IAMSA, and was co-founded by and invested in by Irelandia Aviation. Based in Monterrey Internati ...

, Viva Air Colombia and Viva Air Perú. Irelandia currently owns 100% of its shares. On May 9, 2017, Viva Air Perú, a Peruvian subsidiary airline, was launched and with which the expansion process throughout Latin America continues. In April 2018, it changed its name from ''VivaColombia'' to ''Viva Air Colombia'' to expand its model in Latin America and within the expansion plan Santa Marta was announced as the third center of operations in Colombia. The operations center was enabled in October 2018 with routes that were not covered by other airlines such as Santa Marta, San Andrés, Bucaramanga, and Pereira. This operations center will be assigned two aircraft initially. On April 29, 2022, it was announced that

Avianca Avianca S.A. ( acronym in Spanish for ''Aerovias del Continente Americano S.A.'', "Airways of the American Continent") is a Colombian airline. It has been the flag carrier of Colombia since December 5, 1919, when it was initially registered und ...

would acquire Viva Air Colombia.

Destinations

Viva Air Colombia serves the following destinations:

Interline agreements

Viva Air Colombia has

interline agreement Interlining, also known as interline ticketing and interline booking, is a voluntary commercial agreement between individual airlines to handle passengers traveling on itineraries that require multiple flights on multiple airlines. Such agreement ...

s with the following airlines: *

Air Transat Air Transat is a Canadian airline based in Montreal, Quebec. Founded in 1986, it is the country's third-largest airline behind Air Canada and WestJet, operating scheduled and charter flights serving 60 destinations in 25 countries. Air Transa ...

Fleet

At first, Viva Air Colombia had two options for operation of aircraft: the

Boeing 737 The Boeing 737 is a narrow-body aircraft produced by Boeing at its Boeing Renton Factory, Renton Factory in Washington (state), Washington. Developed to supplement the Boeing 727 on short and thin routes, the twinjet retains the Boeing 707, 7 ...

Airbus A320 The Airbus A320 family is a series of narrow-body airliners developed and produced by Airbus. The A320 was launched in March 1984, first flew on 22 February 1987, and was introduced in April 1988 by Air France. The first member of the famil ...

. In a press conference on November 10, 2011, it was announced to the public that in 2012, the aircraft chosen would be the A320 fitted with CFM 56 high performance engines for better economy and improved consumer prices. The Viva Air Colombia fleet consists of the following aircraft (as of December 2022):Airbus Orders and Deliveries (XLS), monthly updated, accessed via

Accidents and incidents

*On February 4, 2015, an

Airbus A320-200 Airbus SE (; ; ; ) is a European multinational aerospace corporation. Airbus designs, manufactures and sells civil and military aerospace products worldwide and manufactures aircraft throughout the world. The company has three divisions: '' ...

(registered HK-5051) covering the

Bogotá Bogotá (, also , , ), officially Bogotá, Distrito Capital, abbreviated Bogotá, D.C., and formerly known as Santa Fe de Bogotá (; ) during the Spanish period and between 1991 and 2000, is the capital city of Colombia, and one of the larges ...

Medellín Medellín ( or ), officially the Municipality of Medellín ( es, Municipio de Medellín), is the second-largest city in Colombia, after Bogotá, and the capital of the department of Antioquia. It is located in the Aburrá Valley, a central re ...

route took off with 182 people, but 17 minutes later, a fire was registered in one of its engines for which it had to make an emergency landing at

El Dorado International Airport El Dorado International Airport is an international airport serving Bogotá, Colombia and its surrounding areas. The airport is located mostly in the Fontibón district of Bogotá, although it partially extends into the Engativá district and ...

. Once on the ground, the firefighters controlled the problem in the engine, which generated panic among the passengers. The Civil Aeronautics indicated that the passengers "do not present any serious situation."

References

Sources: * * * * * *

External links

Viva Air Colombia
{{Airlines of Colombia Airlines of Colombia Airlines established in 2009 Colombian brands Companies based in Medellín Low-cost carriers Colombian companies established in 2009