RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – State-owned airline Boliviana de Aviación (BoA) will have four weekly flights to Lima, Peru starting next February, Bolivia’s Minister of Public Works, Services, and Housing, Edgar Montaño, announced Wednesday.
“We are announcing four weekly flights from February this year to Lima,” Montaño told the media in La Paz.
He added that the new route to Lima is in addition to the other international ones currently covered by BoA to Madrid, Miami, São Paulo, and Buenos Aires.
The minister also announced that in March, the state-owned airline would have two new 737-800 aircraft to be leased with this new route to Lima in mind, and a “change of aircraft” is planned for the second half of the year.
“We also plan to build a hangar to perform the corresponding maintenance of our entire fleet of aircraft, airport equipment, modernization, and expansion of all its capabilities,” he added.
This maintenance hangar will be in the central region of Cochabamba, where BoA’s headquarters are located.
Montaño highlighted that in 2021 the state-owned airline transported 394,000 passengers, an increase of 115% compared to 2019.
In March 2020, Bolivia closed its airspace for domestic and international commercial flights due to the health emergency resulting from the covid-19 pandemic. In early June of the same year, it allowed the gradual opening of some local routes of the state-owned BoA.
BoA was created in 2007 and began operations in 2009 with flights in La Paz, Cochabamba, and Santa Cruz, Bolivia’s three main cities.
It currently covers most domestic routes and the international destinations mentioned by Montaño.
A year ago, the state-owned company began a reengineering process to ensure the company’s sustainability after losses due to the pandemic.