Avianca indicated that the restrictions were necessitated by “the constant restrictions in different countries in terms of limitation of the entry of tourists, operational reductions, as well as mobility within cities, and the high uncertainty that passengers still have.”

Passengers are advised to visit the Avianca website and contact the air carrier to confirm individual details.

Suspended flights include those from Bogotá, Colombia to and from:

• Washington, DC
• Los Angeles
• Orlando
• Fort Lauderdale
• London
• Barcelona
• Curaçao
• San Juan, Puerto Rico
• Asunción
• La Paz, Bolivia
• Santa Crúz, Bolivia
• Guatemala City
• Panamá City

Also suspended are the following flights:

• Cali – Medellín – Madríd
• Guatemala City – Tegucigalpa
• Guatemala City – Los Angeles
• Panamá City – San José, Costa Rica
• San Salvador – Dallas
• San Salvador – Houston
• San Salvador – Miami
• San Salvador – Toronto
• San Salvador – México City
• Quito – Galapagos Islands
• Quito – El Coca
• San Pedro Sula – Miami

Avianca says it hopes to resume flights in April to Curaçao, Orlando, Guatemala City, and Los Angeles from Bogotá, and San Salvador to Houston, Toronto and México City.

The airline is currently undergoing Chapter 11 Bankruptcy reorganization in US Federal Court.

“We are very excited to resume our flights between Bogotá and Mexico City, a route that we were already operating before the arrival of the pandemic,” said Carolina Cortizo, General Director of Wingo. “Prior to the suspension of international operations, we already demonstrated that the unique combination of low prices, security, punctuality, and good vibes from Wingo was what the travelers who were flying to Mexico need; and for this reason, today we reiterate that we continue here to once again supply that demand for flights between the two countries.”

Based in Bogotá, Colombia, Wingo is an international low-cost carrier owned by Panama’s Copa Airlines.

For Uber, we had detected this potential in 2013, and as we began our rapid global expansion to eventually over 60 nations, we chose Bogotá to be our first step into South America. Our services were quickly embraced by their tech-savvy citizens, and the flexible earnings potential of driving with Uber were welcomed quickly by drivers who appreciated a new way to earn a living. A living that, according to a 2019 profile by the Inter-American Development Bank, represented on-average nearly three times Colombia’s minimum hourly wage.

The popularity of the service grew widely across Colombia, and six years later we had expanded across the nation to 88,000 drivers serving two million regular riders. Because of the mass local adoption of the service, the rich local talent pool, and the optimistic economic outlook for the nation, Uber invested heavily. We opened our regional headquarters in Bogotá, and staffed it with over three hundred full time employees—most of whom are Colombian home-grown talent. In 2019, we selected Bogotá as the destination for our third Center of Excellence in Latin America, and we excitedly poised to directly invest USD $40 million and create 600 new direct jobs.

Justin Kintz is Über’s vice president for global public policy

However, by the end of 2019, it was evident we were lacking even the most basic institutional support from the Colombian government for making such a massive investment in the nation. Despite the fact that Uber Colombia was the first such service in South America, it still had been the last to be licensed and regulated by the national government. In the meantime, our industry had over 80 governments across Latin America proceed ahead sensible licensing, including cities like Rio de Janeiro, Mexico City, and La Paz, states like Mendoza and Jalisco, and entire nations like Brazil, Peru and Chile. (Relatedly, in this same time period, dozens of nations worldwide had established their own rideshare rules in short order.) Despite the Duque administration’s public push to move Colombia into an “Orange Economy” that embraces the digital sector, Uber’s investments instead were treated with ambivalence.

For many years, Uber has advocated for ridesharing regulations in Colombia that were designed to protect the public with safety standards and pricing transparency and to formalize the economy with driver licensing and taxation. Uber even advocated strongly for plans to provide hardship relief to the Colombian taxi industry in the event their drivers struggled in a period of changing consumer trends. To ensure we were practicing what we were preaching, Uber went so far as to self-regulate and collect and remit appropriate taxes despite lacking the governmental mandates, and despite the government not equally enforcing tax on our rideshare competitors or taxis. This was done at great cost to Uber in order to maintain our safety standards at a consistent global level, to create a good example for our entire industry, and to support Colombian communities. Notably, Uber’s services to-date have helped generate roughly 130 billion Colombian pesos (roughly USD $40 million) in revenue for the government.

The calls for regulation had been ignored. Recognizing the fragility of the investment environment, Uber announced in late 2019 that we would not be opening our Center of Excellence in Bogotá, and will be forced to find a different regional destination. This bad news was made much worse a few days before Christmas, when the Superintendency of Industry and Commerce ordered Uber Colombia to shut down, citing unfair competition with taxis. (Importantly, none of the other rideshare companies with nearly identical business models have received similar treatment.)

As Uber begins to close our ride services in Colombia (UberEATS continues food-delivery operations unaffected), we are aggrieved for the nearly ninety thousand drivers who lose this earning opportunity. We feel discouraged for the millions of users who rely on our services to remain mobile safely and conveniently. We are disappointed to see such a step backwards for a nation otherwise poised to move forward. The spirit of the people of Colombia is clearly ready to break out from behind the limits of protectionism and cronyism, and its political leaders have said the right things. This debate provides a real opportunity for those leaders to actually apply the promises they have made, otherwise, it may create a chilling effect on investment and innovation for many years to come. Colombia needs #UnaSolucionParaUberYa.

Editor’s note: Finance Colombia reached out to Colombia’s Superintendencia de Industria y Comercio to give them a chance to submit their position. As of press time, we received this statement: “Las decisiones de los trámites y los procesos adelantados por la Superintendencia de Industria y Comercio serán adoptadas dentro de los términos estipulados en las disposiciones legales que los regulen, atendiendo el debido proceso.” (The decisions of the formalities and processes put forward by the Superintendence of Industry & Commerce will be adopted within the terms stipulated in the legal dispositions that regulate it, attending due process.)

Photo courtesy of Über

This is a guest editorial and does not necessarily reflect the opinion or position of Finance Colombia. 

Pilot applications of the new methodology, coordinated by the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, were carried out in three different types of cities – the capital city of Santiago de Chile, the megacity of São Paulo in Brasil and the Colombian port city of Barranquilla.

Trancones (Traffic Jams) greatly increase the time required to transport merchandise in some cities: by 342% in São Paulo, Brasil, 225% in Barranquilla, Colombia and 140% in Santiago, Chile.

The preliminary analysis of the data gathered, based on three delivery routes for merchandise, indicates that excessive congestion and delays in the delivery of cargo increase operational costs in a substantial way and undercut the region’s competitiveness. The additional time spent on deliveries caused by traffic congestion greatly increases in some cities: by 342 percent in São Paulo, 225 percent in Barranquilla and 140 percent in Santiago.

The pilot applications were the first phase of the new methodology, promoted by the IDB’s Transportation Division to measure the time and estimate the cost that traffic congestion adds to the transportation of merchandise in cities. The methodology will allow the design of solutions, adapted to individual cases, to reduce the economic impact of vehicular crowding.

About 60 to 70 percent of the Gross Domestic Product of countries in the region is generated in urban centers. The bottlenecks and delays generated by traffic congestion are significant because of the importance of cities in the supply chains and last-leg distribution of consumer goods.

The results of the pilot applications were unveiled at the IDB headquarters in Washington D.C. to an audience that included representatives of the private and academic sectors from Barranquilla, Bogota and Cali in Colombia, Panama City, Lima in Peru, Mexico City, San Jose in Costa Rica, Santiago de Chile and São Paulo in Brasil.