Team size: 66  

How do you approach managing legal aspects during periods of instability or crises, and how does your legal strategy align with the broader business strategy to ensure the organisation’s resilience?  

Our team is composed by outstanding members willing to give the extra mile. We have seen our team thrive during periods of instability, which are very common in the airline industry, as we guide them with sharp but also human and motivational leadership through a modern management style (i.e., giving credit where due, sharing the spotlight and exposure, celebrating achievements, learning from failure and encouraging the team to take ownership). This approach has proven to lead to an empowered and generous team that fights for the company in times of trouble and enjoys victory in times of success. 

The permanent communication between the C-suite ensures that all areas cooperate and are duly aligned. This is reflected on how the legal team receives and gives timely and on-point input to the business and actively participates in the most crucial projects of the company since their inception until their final implementation. Across all areas of law, either in M&A and financing projects and commercial initiatives -co-led by Richard Galindo as General Counsel and Natalia Gutiérrez as Legal Director- or in structuring fleet projects, navigating regulatory challenges, we see ourselves as a business partner of the company, with full awareness of the financial impact of our advice. 

What are the main cases or transactions you have been involved in recently? 

Our team handles -in-house- most of the legal work in the company’s strategic projects, coordinating, drafting and handling complex legal work with the highest standards of sophistication and attention to detail. Given that Avianca has presence in more than 25 jurisdictions, the work that we handle extends beyond Colombian borders, often requiring cross-border transactions that touch upon various jurisdictions. 

Among the most notable transactions we have been involved recently, we can name: (i) Avianca’s Chapter 11, which entailed an enormous amount of complex legal work that enabled the company to be the first Latin American airline to successfully emerge from bankruptcy after the pandemic hit. This massive project included the restructuring of all our financial facilities; raising new funds through exit notes; repurchasing a minority stake of LifeMiles Ltd and renegotiating thousands of contracts with our vendors and commercial partners; (ii) Acquisition of a convertible loan in Sky Airline, a Chilean low-cost carrier, (convertible into a minority equity stake); (iii) Incorporation and setting up of ABRA, a leading air transportation group that brings together two iconic brands in the industry (Avianca and GOL); Divestiture of SAI, our ground handling company, in 2023 in line with the group strategy to focus on its core; and most recently, (v) Strategic Investment in Wamos Air, in which we successfully signed an agreement to acquire most of the economic rights of this Spanish ACMI provider (closing pending). 

Our corporate/M&A team also works hand in hand with our Corporate Finance Department in the negotiation of the group’s financing, facilities, bonds and indentures. Also, the Legal Fleet and Regulatory teams (led by directors Carlos Torres and Jorge Serrano, respectively) assisted the company in the most ambitious project in the last decade to increase our operations by almost 30% in a single year (i.e., 2023) with all the challenges involved in such project. Also, our Legal Fleet team was key in advising the airlines on the group in the successful reconfiguration of all its narrow body fleet in less than two years. 

In your opinion, what are the main trends that are salient in your country currently (these can be legal, political, economy or business-based)? 

We see a trend of constant change in the applicable regulatory framework in the countries where we operate (particularly in Latin America). For example, in recent years Colombian Congress passed a new tax reform and recently, a reform to our pension system. In addition, a further labour reform will be discussed in Congress soon. Moreover, every year we see Congress debating the approval of new consumer protection bills specially aimed at the airline industry. 

Even though they intend to enhance the consumers’ rights, most of these initiatives ignore the unique complexities of the airline business and, for the most part, overlook the high fixed costs of operating an airline. Economic trends (including particularly in Colombia a high inflation rate, exchange rates fluctuations, and the volatility of fuel prices) may impact foreign investment in Colombia and the operation and profitability of current businesses.