Avianca begins its operation between Guayaquil and New York

With this new operation, Avianca enters to compete with Jetblue and Eastern that have direct services from Guayaquil.

With 92 passengers, the inaugural flight of Avianca on Wednesday afternoon on the Guayaquil-New York route.

The flight is part of a route expansion plan that announced the airline and including other destinations until 2022.

For this operation,The line used an A320 plane with capacity for 150 passengers. The route will be combined with an A319 plane.

It will have services on Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, with departures from Guayaquil at 4:45 p.m. From New York it will take off at 01:00.

With this new operation, Avianca enters to compete with Jetblue and Eastern, which have direct services from Guayaquil. The route will add more frequencies available with the city of skyscrapers.

Manuel Ambriz, commercial manager of Avianca, indicated that they have good expectations for this route, and announced that they will add others in the coming months. The Executive said they hope to have an occupation of 90 % in high season at this destination.

The airline, which has a subsidiary in Ecuador, also plans to fly to Miami, Medellín and Cali from Quito and Guayaquil.

Currently, Avianca has 23 direct weekly flights to Bogotá and El Salvador and has domestic operation.

Ángel Córdova, manager of Tagsa, the concessionaire of the Guayaquil Airport, said that this service is expected not to serve Ecuadorians, but to attract Americans.

In New York there is an important colony of Ecuadorians, especially in the Queens area, the area in which the JFK airport is located.

The air company held a brief ceremony next to the track to fire the inaugural flight. The Minister of Transportation, Marcelo Cabrera, participated in the ribbon cutting of the flight.