AVIANCA

Sustainability Overview

Avianca Airlines was one of the hardest hit airlines during the COVID-19 pandemic. After changing its cost structure in 2019, the company declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy in mid2020 and underwent a financial restructuring process.

While others might have baulked at taking on the challenge of going green so soon after suffering acute financial distress, Avianca actually reiterated its commitment to the environment through planned incremental improvements. It is entirely to the airline’s credit that sustainability features as a key component of their strategy going forward.

Avianca’s 2021 Sustainability Report outlines two of its key sustainability initiatives after emerging from bankruptcy. The first is a certified Environmental Management System that helps prevent environmental pollution through cleaner production practices and compliance with legislation. The airline reported no aberrations in 2021. The second is a fuel conservation programme called "Avianca Fuel" that designs, implements and monitors fuel conservation initiatives. The programme has 24 fuel conservation initiatives, of which 9 are executed by pilots, 11 are managed by flight dispatch and 4 are executed by maintenance.

Meet The Changemaker

Felipe Andrés Gómez Vivas is Director of Sustainability and Institutional Relations at Avianca. A political scientist with over 19 years of experience, he has worked as a consultant and as an executive in the food, building materials, government and airline sectors. For the last two years he has been leading Avianca’s government relations and sustainability initiatives.

Despite leading the function at Avianca, Felipe insists that sustainability is not an office, an area, or a title.

“It’s a capability that should be visible and accountable in every single project and role inside the airline. Every executive is responsible for making sure ESG practices are present in his or her KPIs and their analysis processes”, he says.

Felipe is proud of what Avianca has achieved despite stiff challenges to its business. For example, as part of its commitment to caring for the environment, under its sustainability strategy, Avianca offset more than 70% of the CO2 emissions generated in its domestic operation in Colombia between 2017 and 2021.

Moreover, a new cabin transformation is set to ensure that more than 90 A320 aircraft will have 20% more capacity per aircraft in order to reduce the carbon footprint per passenger by 13%. In addition, Avianca participated for the fifth consecutive year in the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), the highest-ranked airline in Latin America for its

actions against "climate change".

Finally, the airline is one of the first 100 companies participating in the Carbon Neutrality Program established by the Colombian Ministry of the Environment, contributing to the fulfilment of the goals that the country has set for 2030 and 2050.

Opportunities And Challenges

For Avianca, the main challenge, of course, has been to put their sustainability agenda together in the middle of a brutal pandemic. Felipe says that the airline’s main achievements have been three strategic decisions that are making their flying greener:

Densification of the fleet which will allow Avianca to fly more passengers with less fuel usage and emissions

Growing their point-to-point network, which increases aircraft usage and

efficiency;

Buying more than 80 Airbus aircraft with the latest technology that will make emissions decrease significantly. According to Felipe, the biggest opportunity lies in coordinating and organising all stakeholders involved in air transport operations around fighting emissions and climate change. “We need our staff to understand the risks and opportunities”, he says. “But we also need to achieve this with authorities, passengers, suppliers, and manufacturers. It is not easy but there are signs that show that we are moving in the right direction.”

Felipe is bullish on SAF and sustainable energy for aircraft. He says there is nothing more important than working on this front. “This should be the number one priority. We need to agree on better practices regarding SAFs, airport operations, offsets, new fuel technologies, waste management, carbon taxes, etc. The opportunities are endless”, he emphasises.

Since April 2022, Avianca customers have also been able to voluntarily offset their carbon footprint through a digital platform available as a result of the airline's partnership with CHOOOSE. The first phase of this initiative will enable Avianca customers to contribute to the protection of more than 103,000 hectares of tropical rainforest in Colombia, support the production of wind energy in Costa Rica and help conserve forests in Guatemala.

Looking Ahead

While there are reasons to be hopeful, Felipe is cautiously optimistic. He explains that in the aviation industry there are so many challenges that it is difficult to set sights, as an organisation, on the biggest challenge that seems far away and not immediate.

“We need to make sure all of our people understand the sustainability challenge is as relevant and serious as any operational challenge we face”, he says.

In July 2022, the airline announced that it had offset 97.7% of CO2 emissions (equivalent to 401,000 tonnes) from its operation in Colombia between January and June 2022, through duly certified carbon credits. According to the company, it will invest a total of approximately $4.3 million in emission compensation actions during this year. The sum will be invested mainly in the purchase of carbon credits.

The work is only beginning, however. Felipe says that communication is a huge challenge: “I think that the best way to communicate, additionally to your own communications efforts and activities, is to make sure your allies, your passengers, and stakeholders understand your strategy, that they feel part of it, and make your message their message,” he says. “You need to build strong long-term alliances based on consistent and coherent actions that allow your stakeholders to be your strongest and most credible defenders and validators.”

The challenge of decarbonizing aviation is complex, so it is fascinating and intellectually stimulating. But it is people that keep me going – especially the people across our company who are constantly coming up with new ideas to make progress.

Diana Birkett Rakow Senior Vice President, Public Affairs & Sustainability at Alaska Airlines