Offer for Viva Colombia to go to Colón

The last offer from Tocumen as for Viva Colombia move to Colon airport and pay a passenger fee of $10 per passenger, a savings of $15 in taxes.

This represents moving its operations from a point near the city of Panama, to the province of Colon, about 70 kilometers from the Panamanian capital.

Carlos Duboy , manager of Tocumen, SA, said that the proposal was sent to the executives of the airline through Carlos Mesa , vice president of Airports of the company Viva Air, operator of Viva Colombia.

Duboy said that the terminal Enrique Jiménez, of Colón would satisfy the new model that the airline wants to implement, which is to operate in regional airports with low airport rates.

At the end of April, Viva Colombia, which in the first quarter of the year transported 23,793 passengers on its two routes to Panama (Bogota and Medellín), reported that due to the increase of $ 15 to $ 36 applied by Tocumen in 2016, it would cancel its flights to Panama as of May 20th.

"It makes sense for the company to move to Colón, because of the cruise port and a significant number of the passengers who board the ship every Friday are Colombian," the Tocumen manager said.

Since the remodeling of the terminal, at a cost of more than $58 million in August 2013, the airport of Colón has not had regular commercial operations.

Duboy said that it is not feasible for Tocumen to reduce airport taxes at the Panama Pacifico terminal, as requested by Viva Colombia.  "If we charge $10 in Panama Pacifico we then would have to lower the price for other operators," he said.

Gustavo Him , administrator of the ATP, said that if the airline agrees to move to Colon, the State would be willing to agree on a new agreement to promote the route. "But of course, we have to see what kind of passengers that would bring us,"  The ATP usually finances market packages to entice the arrival of more tourists through the airlines.

At the moment, the company maintains a delinquency with Tocumen in the payment of the airport tax. In  mid-2016 Viva Colombia restructured its operations, after Irelandia Aviation increased its shareholding in the business, from 25% to 75%, by buying the shares of Grupo Bolívar and Grupo Fast.

The company has canceled internal flights in Colombia and, at the beginning of the year, confirmed the purchase of 50 aircraft for more than 5 billion dollars in search for new markets.