United Continental Holdings Inc. and Delta Air Lines Inc. are among suitors considering bids for Avianca Holdings SA, according to people familiar with the matter, as airlines around the world seek combinations to help them withstand fierce competition and bulk up internationally.

Advisers to Avianca have distributed a document to potential bidders seeking a $500 million capital injection, one of the people said, adding that could develop into a full sale. The process is in early stages, the people said, and there may be no deal at all.

Avianca, one of the largest airline companies in Latin America, is based in Panama and owns carriers including its Colombian namesake and Tampa Cargo SA in that country, and AeroGal in Ecuador. In 2010, Avianca merged with Grupo Taca, which had airlines in El Salvador, Costa Rica, Peru, Nicaragua and Honduras. Avianca went public in 2011 and has a market value equal to roughly $600 million.

United needs planes
They may get some used planes from them

58 used Airbus on a top of the 42 used coming will be an awesome way to get most regional flying back in house and hire as many regionals pilots as possible

Win win

Also think it might be a defensive tactic to block Emirates from getting a toehold in Panama.

Wouldn't/Couldn't United or Delta use (presumably lower paid/lower cost) Avianca to add flights from Latin America to U.S cities instead of growing their own airlines? Seems like it can also be a bad thing for their pilots.

Avianca isn´t based in Panama. I think they have maybe 1 or 2 flights to Panama a day. They´re a Colombian carrier with a majoity of ops out of BOG.

Hookers and Coke - what could go wrong ?! I know of one JetBlue FA that would be happy about it - lol

😂😂😂😂😂😂😂 That's funny right there, I don't care who you are!! 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

Not exactly correct anymore. Avianca was bought by a Brazilian and merged with TACA. The group own numerous franchises in Central and South America:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avianca_Holdings


Bingo!!!

While ALPA has all the easily manipulated minds concentrating on Norwegian it's deals like these that are truly bad for the U.S. pilots. A 25 year seniority Avianca 787 Captain makes $7000-8000/month. His 3rd/4th year F.O. is on about $3000/month (those numbers may be lower with the fall in the Peso).

If a deal like this happens you can bet any future growth in Central and South America will go to the newly acquired entity.



Typhoonpilot

This is wrong. Our scope clause at United strictly prevents this from happening. Unless they wanted to buy the airline and run it seperately, they wouldnt even be allowed to do a codeshare according to the United Pilot Agreement.

Maybe for now. Your MEC recently pushed out the brain child for our current scope clause Alfredo Suarez (our former Alliance and Oversight Chairman nick named the scope pope) and replaced him with a nice guy but an idiot. Good luck to us!