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Benny Klepach: “It’s a wonderful opportunity to take areas of best practice and implement them through the group” |
CENTRAL AND SOUTH AMERICA. The DFASS Group has been selected to operate a range of services on three regional airlines belonging to the same group – Avianca, based in Colombia; TACA, based in El Salvador, Costa Rica and Lima, Peru; and AeroGal of Ecuador.
DFASS will operate both duty free and duty paid retail across the airlines. The group will unify under the Avianca brand name, starting in the first half of 2013. Each member carrier will keep its own separate legal corporate status but will be authorised to do business under one brand name.
Avianca, Taca and AeroGal operate their respective international flights from their hubs in Bogota (Colombia), San Salvador (El Salvador), Lima (Peru), and San José (Costa Rica). In 2011, they transported a total of 20.5 million passengers, of which more than 9.2 million were on international flights. For the first ten months of 2012, the airlines carried over 19 million passengers.
Combined, the carriers offer over 4,500 weekly flights to more than 100 destinations in 25 countries in the Americas and Europe. Avianca and Taca are part of the Star Alliance, which now offers connections to 750 destinations worldwide
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DFASS puts the icing on the cake |
| For Chairman Benny Klepach and his wife Juliette it was a happy but poignant occasion as they reflected on how far the company has come over the past quarter century |
DFASS Group Chairman and CEO Benny Klepach commented: “We are delighted to have been entrusted with so many areas of retail development for Avianca, Taca and AeroGal.
“We have pioneered a number of innovative ideas with Avianca, including dedicated flight attendants for duty free, and Jetway arrival delivery.
“It’s a wonderful opportunity to take areas of best practice and implement them through the group. This long-term agreement will allow both companies to focus on existing and new revenue opportunities, as well as building on every level of passenger service and satisfaction.”
Since Avianca and TACA (and the affiliated airlines) merged, the group has implemented 45 new routes and increased available seat kilometres by +37%, DFASS noted.
