Viva Group spreads its ambition to Costa Rica and Central America’s barren LCC landscape

Roughly three years after the debut of the second airline member of the Viva Group, VivaColombia, Costa Rica has emerged as the base for the third airline VivaCam. The new airline is initially focusing on low cost service to Central America, which has little LCC penetration. Economies in that region are also stronger than most countries in South America, which means that residents in the region are more readily incentivised and able to travel.

The establishment of VivaCam is another step towards the Viva Group establishing itself as a pan-Latin American LCC entity after injecting LCC competition into Mexico and Colombia with the establishment of VivaAerobus and VivaColombia. However, the current Viva airlines have no coordination, and it is uncertain whether VivaCam will initially seek to cooperate with its sister airlines.

However, VivaCam will source aircraft from other Viva airlines. VivaAerobus placed a hefty Airbus narrowbody order in 2013, which will no doubt serve as resource for growth among all the Viva airlines, whatever growth trajectory each airline adopts.