The route development consultancy Airport Strategy and Marketing (ASM) has worked with the Colombian city of Cartagena to secure its only direct route to Europe.
This will be the first time Cartagena will be linked non-stop to Europe in around ten years since AirMadrid offered flights from to the Spanish cities of Barcelona and Madrid back in the mid-2000s. Cartagena also successfully attracted flights from Italy with Blue Panorama Airlines at the start of this decade but these were purely on a charter basis.
LATAM Airlines is resurrecting the former LAN Peru link between Cartagena and Lima from January 2017, initially operating with four weekly frequencies using Airbus A320 equipment. This marks a significant growth in capacity versus when it was flown under the LAN Airlines guise between April 2009 and June 2011 when there were just two weekly rotations using a smaller A319 airliner.
ProColombia, the new name of the tourism and promotions organisation that was ProExport Colombia, is experiencing a rise in new international flights to the country as it takes the top spot for economic growth in the region.
The existing New York – Cartagena route from JetBlue has proved successful in connecting Cartagena with the North East United States and the carrier is hopeful of replicating this success further south with a new link from Fort Lauderdale which launches on October 29, 2014.
The airline plans new flights to Cartagena, Colombia and Las Vegas, Nevada and Jacksonville, Florida from October 29, 2014, the same day the airline will also launch its previously announced non-stop service to Pittsburgh.