Boliviana de Aviación

Background and early years

Boliviana de Aviación (BoA), was founded on 24 October 2007 by the Bolivian government under president Evo Morales, who signed Supreme Decree 29318 into law, establishing the new airline as a strategic state-owned enterprise with the purpose of sustaining the Bolivian air travel market, which had been left exposed during the downturn of Lloyd Aéreo Boliviano (LAB), the country's former flag carrier. The new airline would be under the supervision of the Ministry of Public Works, Services, and Housing.

Proposals from the Bolivian government to establish a new airline quickly became concrete in 2006 when LAB suspended much of its air routes due to financial difficulties and years of mismanagement. LAB had accumulated losses since 1995, at the time of its partial acquisition by Brazilian airline VASP. Its debts approached $180 million and in 2012, it formally ceased operations after 87 years of service. At the time of its demise, Lloyd Aéreo Boliviano was the second oldest airline in South America after Avianca.

On 29 March 2009, Boliviana de Aviación launched its first scheduled flight between the cities of La Paz, Cochabamba and Santa Cruz de la Sierra using one of the two Boeing 737-300 it acquired that same year. In 2012, BoA became the main airline in the country after the bankruptcy of AeroSur, Bolivia's second largest carrier.

Expansion

Three years after it started operations, Boliviana de Aviación extended its domestic network by adding services to the cities of Sucre and Tarija. In 2012, following the demise Bolivia's second largest airline, AeroSur, the airline became the principal carrier in the country and consolidated its network of scheduled domestic services, reaching the country's main centers of population. In addition to its domestic network, the airline operates scheduled international services to the South American countries of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Peru and Venezuela. In May 2010, it inaugurated its first international flight from Cochabamba to Buenos Aires and in November 2010, it began services to São Paulo, its second international destination. The airline currently offers daily non-stop service to Buenos Aires and to São Paulo.

The airline subsequently leased a single Airbus A330 as its first long-haul aircraft to begin transatlantic services to Madrid in Spain. The first flight was made in November 2012 from Santa Cruz de la Sierra's Viru Viru International Airport to Madrid–Barajas Airport. The airline later retired the Airbus A330 and in 2014, it leased a total of 4 Boeing 767-300ERs to increase frequencies to its Madrid service and began daily non-stop flights to Miami in the United States that same year. On February 8th, 2022, the airline began service to Lima, Peru, On October 26th 2023, the airline started scheduled services to Havana in Cuba using a Boeing 737-800. However, the airline has suspended its services to Havana in July 2024, just 9 months since its inaugural flight, due to low demand and high operating costs. On November 3rd 2023, it launched its new destination to Caracas, Venezuela and on January 18th 2024, it began service to Asunción in Paraguay.

As part of its fleet modernization program, the airline started to gradually replace its fleet of Boeing 737-300 for modern Boeing 737 Next Generation aircraft. In April 2023, Boliviana de Aviación took delivery of its first Airbus A330-200 for its long-haul services from Santa Cruz de la Sierra, to Miami and Madrid. The airline currently has three aircraft of the type in its fleet, replacing the aging Boeing 767-300ER. The newer aircraft feature lie-flat seats in business class and improved services in economy class featuring In-flight entertainment screens in every seat. The airline is also currently modernizing the interior seats of its Boeing 737 aircraft by installing newer Mirus Hawk seats.

Business figures

On 29 March 2009, Boliviana of Aviación (BoA) made its inaugural flight. To almost a year of the fact, the participation of the state company in the regular aeronautical market came to a close of 50% and utilities to some US$2.2 million. Some domestic networks have been dominated by the services of BoA. Most of the airline's financial success is due to the 10% reduction of all its fares in domestic flights compared with AeroSur.

Since 2010, the airline began taking leadership in some domestic routes, in decline of the private flag carrier AeroSur.

According to the Authority of Inspection and Social control of Transport and Telecommunications (ATT), Boliviana de Aviación achieved the passengers' biggest quantity in three routes:

Cochabamba-Cobija (64%)