New Costa Rican airline offers to operate routes eliminated by TACA

A new airline called TICOS-Airlines submitted a bid to Costa Rica’s Civil Aviation Administration to take over routes dropped by Avianca-TACA airlines last month.

Civil Aviation Vice Director Álvaro Vargas confirmed that the new company already began the certification process and their representatives have met with Civil Aviation officials.

The airline would operate the routes using three to five Airbus type aircrafts.

Currently the company is in the process of preparing flight manuals, and is conducting financial and feasibility studies.

On May 17, Avianca-TACA decided to drop five direct flights between San José and other destinations and laid off 261 employees from its Costa Rica operations as part of an integration process with Colombian-owned airline Avianca. On May 28, the trademark TACA began disappearing, and moving forward, the airline will be identified only as Avianca.

Canceled routes were direct flights between San José and Los Angeles, New York, Havana (Cuba), and Quito and Guayaquil, in Ecuador.

A Technical Council of the Civil Aviation Administration this week hired an external attorney to perform a legal study in order to recommend possible sanctions against Avianca-TACA for the unilateral suspension of the routes.

Delta Airlines in May announced they will begin operating a new nonstop daily flight between Los Angeles and San José starting July 1.