Bogota has 41 domestic routes; network almost unchanged

Viva Air Colombia is the country’s third-largest domestic carrier with 9% of the market in late November, while Avianca and LATAM collectively have three-quarters.

Bogota has 41 domestic routes in the week beginning 23 November 2020, with these generating 965 one-way flights.

While the airport had the same number of routes in the same period in 2019, flights are down from 2,090 – a drop of 54%, OAG shows.

Only San Vicente del Caguá is no longer served.  In its place is Aguachica, new for 2020; it operates twice-weekly using SATENA’s ATR-42s.

Bogota’s proportion of domestic flights has risen from 73% in 2019 to 82% now. Once again this shows the significance of domestic service amid the pandemic.

Six carriers will operate domestically from the Colombian capital this November week.

Three-quarters of the market will be carved up among two carriers: Avianca with 48% of flights and LATAM with 27%.

The remaining quarter will be provided by LCC Viva Air Colombia with 9%, SATENA 8%, EasyFly 5%, and Wingo with just 2%.

Bogota has 41 domestic routes in late November 2020, unchanged in number YOY. Only one route has changed. San Vicente del Caguá is no longer served, while Aguachica is. Source: OAG Mapper.

Bogota’s top-10 routes have 79% of domestic flights; Medellin leads

Despite Bogota’s widespread domestic network, 79% of its domestic flights are to its top-10 destinations, as shown below.  This was up from 72% YOY.

The top four routes – Medellin, Cali, Cartagena, and Barranquilla – remain the same in both 2020 and 2019, although capacity to them has changed dramatically.

Both Avianca and LATAM are on all of Bogota’s top-10 routes. And at 82%, they have a disproportionate share of flights on these ‘core 10’.  This nicely demonstrates the carriers’ network strategy.

Meanwhile, Viva Air Colombia serves nine of these 10 (no Bucaramanga), Wingo is on three, and EasyFly just one.

Avianca is dominant on all top-10 routes except San Andres Island.  It is third, behind LATAM and Viva, but ahead of Wingo.

On a percentage basis, San Andres Island has seen the greatest reduction in flights, at 61%, with 48 fewer weekly flights.  This is from Avianca cutting 21 (hence why it is now far less dominant), LATAM  19, and Viva Air Colombia eight.

At the other extreme, Bogota has six routes with just two weekly flights in this November week: Aguachica; Ibague; Pitalito; San Jose del Guaviare; Saravena; Tame. All are served by SATENA’s ATR-42s, except Ibague, to which Avianca uses ATR-72s.

At just 84 kilometres, Villavicencio is Bogota’s shortest route – and also badly hit, with flights down by 84% YOY, as more travel overland.

All but one of these top-10 routes were in the ‘core 10’ list in the same week in 2019. Monteria wasn’t, with Yopal, which was 10th, now 17th. Source: OAG Schedules Analyser and airline websites.