Flybondi (FO, Córdoba International) announced on January 12 that it has been forced to park some of its B737-800 fleet after being unable to send US Dollar payments abroad to lessors. About 11.5% of all daily passengers are facing flight cancellations as a result.
The Argentinian ultra-low-cost carrier blamed the delays on the government’s approval of abroad service payments. Additionally, the new financial instruments set to ease the debt payment are not up to the standard of Flybondi’s providers, it argued in a statement.
“As a result of the ongoing situation, the company has seen an impact on part of its fleet, due to non payment of leases and other services. In the short term, this has lead to cancellations and reschedulings that impact over 1,300 daily passengers.” The company carries around 350,000 passengers per month.
Argentina’s current administration, led by Javier Milei, is looking to dollarise the country, as shock-therapy to improve the economy. Flybondi has faced issues with currency restrictions in the past.
The ch-aviation fleets module shows Flybondi operates a fleet of fifteen B737-800s, all of them leased from six companies. A total of four B737-800s are currently inactive. However, at least one of these plane groundings, LV-KJE (msn 30700), is related to a tail strike that took place earlier this month; the aircraft is on repair at the moment.
ch-aviation contacted Flybondi for comment.
