Copa Airlines Colombia
Colombian airline
Copa Airlines Colombia is a commercial passenger airline founded and registered under the corporate name of AeroRepública S.A. in November 1992, and is the second airline in Colombia for international passengers carried after Avianca and the third in total traffic. It covers national and international destinations from the El Dorado International Airport in Bogotá and from the main cities of Colombia. As of October 5, 2010, the airline used the trade name of Copa Airlines Colombia.
Today, AeroRepublica S.A. flights using the Copa Airlines brand Copa Holdings in some destinations and also the Wingo brand in others.
History
Founding
In 1992, during the economic liberalization policy of Colombian President César Gaviria, under the leadership of Alfonso Velandia and Amos Ginor, negotiations began to create AeroRepública, the first private airline to be created in Colombia in years. The airline started operations on 19 June 1993, with Boeing 727-100 aircraft painted with the yellow, blue and red colors of the flag of Colombia, initially flying to Colombian coastal cities, such as Santa Marta, Cartagena, and San Andrés from Bogotá.
In the first months of operations, AeroRepública added new domestic destinations such as Cali, Medellín, Barranquilla, Montería, and Leticia. It also launched international services to Aruba and Cuba. Meanwhile, the three 727-100s were replaced by second-hand McDonnell Douglas DC-9-30 purchased from Continental Airlines and Alitalia.
Operational mishaps and restructuring (1993–2005)
During the first years of operations, AeroRepública's reputation became tarnished due to constant mechanical problems with its ageing fleet, low punctuality, and mismanagement.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1129944. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1992, 2010, 1993 and 2005.
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This entry incorporates text from “Copa Airlines Colombia” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.