News / Bogotá slot row threatens Colombia’s flower air cargo lifeline

© Sl Photography

Air cargo operators and users are concerned about moves by authorities that could impact cargo flows or put the brakes on international expansion.

Asocoflores, the national association of Colombian flower exporters, has voiced concerns over temporary take-off and landing slot assignment at Bogotá’s Eldorado Airport, the nation’s primary gateway for passenger and cargo traffic.

It urged the authorities to base slot allocation decisions on technical evidence, not on administrative decisions made in isolation.

In its public warning, Asocoflores stressed the importance of schedule integrity to the transport of flowers and the impact of szupply chain delays and interruptions on the quality and shelf life of floral shipments.

IATA joined in the discussion, urging the authorities to ensure a new system of assigning airport slots does not deviate from the World Airport Slot Guidelines (WASG). It called on the government to implement without delay a catalogue of recommendations from a capacity study the airline interest group conducted with Eldorado operator Aerocivil in 2023.

The study concluded that the airport’s capacity could be increased 47%, to 100 operations per hour, through implementation of 23 structural measures.

However, by late February, only three of those recommendations had been implemented, with another six in progress, IATA noted.

Peter Cerdá, IATA’s regional VP Americas, said demand for air transport in Colombia continued to grow, whereas capacity of the major airports – especially Eldorado – remained severely limited. Abandoning WASG could result in reduced routes, deterioration of connectivity for cargo, higher tariffs, and reduced ability to compete with other regional hubs.

“We share the sentiment expressed by Asocolflores and IATA regarding the need for slot allocation to be based on technical evidence,” commented Enrica Calonghi, director South America of Air France KLM Cargo.

“The airport is experiencing restrictions due to scheduled runway maintenance. This has led to a tighter and more complex slot allocation environment. This situation impacts all operators and necessitates careful coordination to ensure operational stability,” she added.

Asocoflores highlighted that disruptions were magnified in peak shipping seasons, like Mother’s Day and Valentine’s Day, when the volume of traffic could reach triple the normal amount. While the existing set-up has the flexibility to handle such surges, a new, more rigid regime could throttle flows, it warned.

The recent Valentine’s Day rush went without disruption.

“Despite the challenging slot environment, we successfully managed our operations in this period and ramped up available capacity via alternative hubs, optimised our existing flight schedule, and maximised the utilisation of our freighter capacity to meet the high demand,” reported Ms Calonghi.

During the final two weeks of January, when Valentine’s Day traffic peaked, volume from Central and South America to North America surged 44% over the prior two-week period, while rates climbed 11%, data from World ACD shows.

Avianca Cargo boosted its tally of flowers from Colombia to North America during the Valentine’s Day rush by 6%. It ramped-up lift out of Colombia and Ecuador to move more than 19,000 tons of flowers north. LATAM Cargo flew 24,300 tons of flowers from Colombia and Ecuador to the US and Europe.

Volumes began to abate in the first week of February, dropping 24% overall, while capacity shrank 12%, and rates retreated 6%, according to WorldACD.

Despite the slowdown, global exports from the CSA region in the first three weeks of February were 5.7% higher than 12 months prior, rising in all sectors except to Africa. Volume to North America was up 3.8% year on year.

While carriers and customers in Bogotá are worried about disruption from slot allocation, their peers in Peru are concerned about an airport user fee for passengers transiting Lima’s Jorge Chávez International Airport, introduced at the end of last year. They fear this will stifle transit flows and undermine network expansion plans.

Mr Cerdá estimates that the fee could reduce the number of connecting passengers by 3% to 11%. By 2041 this could result in 21.7m fewer international passengers, which would slow network expansion and the concomitant rise in bellyhold cargo capacity.

According to IATA, currently 40% of passengers going through Jorge Chávez change flights. If they pick alternative transit points, Lima stands to fall further behind regional rivals like Bogotá and Panama, which offer, respectively, 97 and 96 international destinations, while Lima has 69.

This flies in the face of the Peruvian government’s efforts to build up international air traffic – in January, it signed open skies agreements with Spain and Panama.