MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Budget carrier user creates website to keep track of non-compliances

Flybondi's future hangs in the balance as travelers need to weigh the convenience of a low price against delays up up to 12 hours

Tired of endless reschedulings and cancellations, an Argentine low-cost airline Flybondi user developed a website to track these seemingly endless incidents so prospective customers can see firsthand what they sign up for when buying these really affordable tickets.

During the holiday season, Flybondi rescheduled over 70 flights. “In total, Flybondi wasted approximately 2 years, 2 months and 24 days of life among all its passengers,” reads the website launched by a graphic designer and programmer Andrés Snitcofsky who can be followed on X as @esoesnulo.

The website is avaiable here.

The initiative seeks to allow people to track daily and in real time the status of the Flybondi, now topping the world's cancellations lists. On Monday, out of 31 scheduled flights, Flybondi cancelled four, while another four showed delays of more than 45 minutes at take-off, another six were delayed between 45 and 30 minutes and eight others admittedly were delayed between 30 and 15 minutes. Only 9 flights took off as scheduled or with “normal” delays of between 15 to 30 minutes.

The website is based on real official information on the operation of Aeropuertos Argentina and seeks to focus on the usual malfunctioning of the low cost airline, which constantly incurs in delays and cancellations that directly affect hundreds of passengers every day.

Each day the web site shows the flight with the longest delay. For example, on Sunday it was FO 5191 from Jujuy to Aeroparque, which departed 12 hours and 28 minutes behind schedule.

Given these recurrent incidents, Bariloche tourism operators expressed “their deep concern about the repeated cancellations of flights operated by Flybondi to and from this city.”

Flybondi has cancelled or delayed 439 out of 973 flights between Dec. 22 and Jan. 5, with 2.67% cancellations and 42.44% significant delays.

The budget carrier recently incorporated two Boeing B-737/800s under the ACMI modality, which includes crews and maintenance, in a move to stabilize operations after a year plagued by complications. In addition, the National Civil Aviation Administration (ANAC) has already warned the airline to submit a correction plan or face losing its license.