Copa welcomes Venezuela debt payment proposals

COPA AIRLINES on Friday, reacted positively, assessed to the Venezuelan government proposal to pay their debt quotas to foreign companies, but were cautious while awaiting agreements to materialize.

“We see the announcement by the Government as something positive but it is still a matter to be resolved," Copa CEO Pedro Heilbron told Efe news agencyin New York on Friday, May 30, before participating in Copa’s annual meeting with investors and analysts.

Foreign companies operating in Venezuela have received a government proposal to cancel the debt payments by 2016 on sales of tickets in bolivars.Unconverted dollar debt is estimated at about $4.2 billion. 
"Venezuela cannot afford to keep losing air connectivity," said Heilbron, whose company has reduced by 40 % the availability of seats to that country to prevent further increases in the debt of the Venezuelan state.
He said held that the Venezuelan authorities are taking steps to rectify the situation and to maintain an air service, which, he said, is " indispensable" for economic development.
In the absence of payment, companies such as Alitalia and Air Canada suspended operations in Venezuela, others reduced frequencies and resorted to various mechanisms such as marketing quotas on flights abroad.
"If this situation is regularized and demand is healthy, we can return the same number of flights as before or even more," said Heilbron, who reiterated that he welcomes the announcement by the authorities to reach payment arrangements with the airlines.
The International Air Transport Association (IATA) a month ago called on the Venezuelan government to repatriate the country’s debt to the airlines "at a fair exchange rate.”
Companies such as AeroMexico, Ecuador and Aruba Tame Airlines have signed payment agreements with the Venezuelan government, in a country where for months I has been almost impossible to find passages out of Venezuela or only at very high prices