By Kylie Madry and Gabriel Araujo
Dec 10 (Reuters) - Latin American airline holding Abra Group, which controls Brazil's Gol GOLL54.SA and Colombia's Avianca, has considered adding smaller aircraft to its fleet but will not order planes solely to boost capacity, CEO Adrian Neuhauser said on Wednesday.
Gol has often been linked to a potential order of Brazilian planemaker Embraer's EMBJ3.SA regional jets.
The company currently flies only Boeing BA.N 737 planes.
Rival LATAM Airlines LTM.SN earlier this year placed a firm order for 24 E195-E2 jets, which it said would allow it to add up to 30 new destinations in Brazil.
"We're not in a rush to add an additional fleet type just to add capacity," Neuhauser told reporters.
"If we add the additional fleet type, it needs to be to service markets that we otherwise couldn't service, either physically or economically," he added.
AIRBUS DELIVERIES
Avianca, which operates Airbus AIR.PA narrowbodies and Boeing widebodies, had more than 70% of its fleet affected by an A320 recall last month.
It concluded a required software change and resumed normal operations on December 2.
Neuhauser said the company does not forecast major long-term impacts from a separate fuselage panel defect that has been hurting A320 deliveries.
"These are very short-term contingency issues," he said, adding that a plane expected to be delivered next week was currently under review.
"We're in close talks with Airbus. But we're talking about some aircraft that could be delayed - in the optimistic case, by a couple of weeks; in the pessimistic, by a couple of months," he said.
Avianca, which recently added a route to the Amazon city of Belem, said it expects to further expand its connectivity with Brazil in 2026.
(Reporting by Kylie Madry in Mexico City and Gabriel Araujo in Sao Paulo; Editing by Leslie Adler)
((Gabriel.Araujo2@thomsonreuters.com; +55 11 5047-3352;))
Comments