South America’s second-largest airline, Avianca, emerged from its US Chapter 11 restructuring over a year ago as a fundamentally changed carrier. It would no longer be known as a full-service airline, but instead would add aspects of the budget carrier model that is rapidly expanding in the region. Out were business class seats, free food and drink, and other extra amenities. In were a la carte fare bundles ranging from the no-frills “XS” to all-inclusive “L” for economy class travelers, new seats in a more densely packed layout and more point-to-point routes that bypass its traditional hub in Bogotá. “We don’t want to lose our historical customers — we want to keep a differentiated product to address them, but on the other hand we have to acknowledge that our competitors has a much lighter product,” Avianca CEO Adrian Neuhauser, who replaced Anko Van der Werff in April 2021, said late that year. “So we try and find that balance.” The changes have made Avianca more like the growing segment of discount competitors, including JetSmart, Viva Air, and Copa Airlines-owned Wingo. But, as the legacy carrier has gone downmarket, an opening in Colombia has emerged for one of its biggest rivals: Latam Airlines Group.<br/>
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Lufthansa is considering moving its legal domicile from Cologne to Munich, but no decision has been made yet, a company spokesperson has confirmed to ch-aviation. "It is correct that there are considerations regarding the registered office of Deutsche Lufthansa AG. These considerations are at a very early stage. No preliminary decision has been made, let alone a decision on the future legal seat of the company. Nor will there be an item on the agenda or a decision on this matter at our upcoming annual general meeting in Munich on May 9, 2023," the spokesman said. A change of legal domicile will have little practical impact on Lufthansa's commercial operations managed from its head office at Frankfurt International. A legal domicile is the location declared in legal documents and where the company pays taxes. Bavaria offers a competitive system of corporate taxation.<br/>
Air New Zealand is sending recovery flights to Samoa and Japan to bring back customers left stranded after Auckland Airport was shut down by flooding. The airline said almost all the 9000 customers whose travel plans were disrupted have now been rebooked, with an estimated 300 still to process as of Wednesday evening. On Thursday, the airline had scheduled an extra flight from Apia to Auckland to provide an earlier travel option for 300 customers. Previously, the earliest direct flights available weren’t until February 25, with some passengers being rebooked on flights via Fiji and Australia. An extra service using a 787-9 Dreamliner would also operate from Tokyo, but would not depart until February 6 – though this was still sooner than expected. Samoa and Japan were the two ports that remained in high demand with limited options, said Air New Zealand chief customer and sales officer Leanne Geraghty. “These extra flights will be a relief to those needing to get home.” On Tuesday Air New Zealand announced it had added additional services from Los Angeles and Niue, while one of its nonstop flights from New York had made a stop in Fiji to pick up passengers there. The airline had also teamed up with codeshare partner Singapore Airlines, upgauging one of its 777-300s to an A380, which had added around 200 seats to bring home customers stuck in Singapore. Geraghty said the flooding event, which saw international flights into Auckland Airport paused for 37 hours from Friday night, had resulted in “one of our biggest rebookings in our history”, with effectively two customers rebooked every minute since late Saturday evening.<br/>