RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The Bolivian government resumed a program designed in 2019 to renew the fleet of state-owned airline Boliviana de Aviación (BoA) with the arrival this Thursday of a Boeing 737-800 aircraft.
The aircraft was presented at Jorge Wilstermann airport, in the central region of Cochabamba, in a ceremony attended by the country’s president, Luis Arce; the minister of Public Works, Édgar Montaño, and BoA’s general manager, Ronald Casso, among other authorities.
“This aircraft is the first of a fleet renewal project that has been approved in 2019 when the president was minister of Economy,” Casso mentioned.
The plan was postponed due to the 2019 crisis, but “now we are resuming the fleet renewal project” that includes a “package of eight aircraft” and will be financed with US$17.5 million, he said.
The aircraft presented this day arrives “on a five-year lease,” has 168 seats, and is “a version of the new generation of digitized aircraft,” the BoA manager explained.
He also highlighted that the company had transported more than two million passengers in the first half of the year, 11% more than in 2019, which, in his opinion, shows that the Bolivian economy has been reactivated.
Arce agreed with Casso by highlighting that the growth is 23 % if compared to the 2021 management, a sign of the “economic reactivation” of the country.
“The time has come to boost our BoA,” said Arce and pointed out that the fleet renewal strategy aims to consolidate it as Bolivia’s “flag carrier”.
The state-owned airline 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, in addition to Madrid, Miami, São Paulo, Buenos Aires, and Lima.
In 2021, the state-owned airline began a reengineering process to ensure its sustainability after losses due to the covid-19 pandemic.
Casso acknowledged that the airline has “several shortcomings” to overcome in terms of punctuality and customer service, even though he assured that the priority for the state-owned company is to put “the safety of operations above all other factors”.
With information from EFE