Airlines canceled flights from Colombia on Monday, citing low fuel supplies as the reason, but later resumed most of them because government and industry representatives couldn’t agree on the reason.
The national airline Avianca announced in a statement that it had been informed by suppliers of a cap on kerosene deliveries “for the rest of the month.” Avianca, according to Colombia’s air transport regulator, canceled 24 flights on Monday.
There were issues with Avianca flights to Sao Paulo, Santiago, Mexico City, and Cancun, as per the FlightAware tracking program.
The biggest airline in Latin America, LATAM, announced that it was forced to postpone 36 flights for Tuesday because of “restrictions on the supply of Jet A1 aviation fuel in some airports.”
But later Monday, both companies said operations were back to normal and that they had received assurances of uninterrupted fuel supply.
The government denied there had ever been a shortage, and blamed fuel distributor Terpel, owned by Chilean oil company Copec, for not doing its job.
Terpel pointed the finger at issues at the state-owned oil business Ecopetrol’s Reficar refinery near Cartagena.
Reficar’s output was impacted by a “electrical failure” from August 16 to 18, according to a statement from Ecopetrol.
On X, President Gustavo Petro stated that it was false “to report that flight cancellations had to do with the August 16 Reficar blackout,” stressing that the refinery issue had been resolved “without causing problems.”
According to the transport ministry, Ecopetrol announced earlier on Monday that it will import 100,000 barrels of aviation gasoline, which could result in an increase in ticket costs.
The International Air Transport Association (IATA) had warned on Sunday that a fuel shortage would lead to flight cancellations and flights carrying fewer passengers per plane.
IATA, which is the trade association for over 300 airlines, said that distributors cut off fuel to 11 terminals and alerted several more to “critical” stock levels.
Jet fuel supplies, according to the Aerocivil airport administration, were “sufficient.”
Petro indicated that market regulators would conduct “investigations”.
The president, who wants to lessen the reliance of the Colombian economy on oil exports, has come under fire from the opposition for allegedly appointing incompetent individuals to lead Ecopetrol.
