MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Bolivia sells 14% more airplane tickets

Boliviana de Aviacion's expansion accounts for more Bolivians chosing to travel by air

Passenger air traffic in Bolivia has increased from 1,859,456 to 2,121,437 between January and August, 2016, compared to the same part of 2015, the General Directorate of Civil Aeronautics (DGAC) reported, which means a 14 % increase.

 Air terminals at La Paz, Cochabamba and Viru Viru account for the biggest portion of the entire country's airline services, the state-owned Boliviana de Aviación (BoA) carrying 1,721,765 people (81.1%) of the total demand, while Amaszonas and Ecojet fell 9% and 20%, respectively. Until August, Amaszonas transported to 268,184, a noticeable decrease from last year's 293,556. Ecojet's total went down to, a drop of 32,959 passengers.

BoA credit their success on the opening of BoA Regional, a subsidiaty company that has increased supply within the domestic market, particularly with direct services such as Santa Cruz-Trinidad, Tarija-Sucre, as well as the Oruro, Potosí and Uyuni routes. Amaszonas loss is believed to stem from the company dropping the Tarija and Oruro routes, although new ones are due to start this coming month, including the resumption of daily Santa Cruz-Yacuiba-Tarija flights, Santa Cruz-Uyuni and the Santa Cruz-La Paz air shuttle.

Linder Delgadillo of Ecojet speculated that his company's drop could be explained because it had not been cleared to serve mainstream routes but now that they are on equal terms he foresees a prompt recovery, also to be boosted by new aircraft joining the fleet.