The court confirmed Avianca Holdings S.A.’s further modified joint Chapter 11 plan after an October 26, 2021 confirmation hearing, overruling unresolved objections and authorizing the exit facility, new common equity and warrants, releases, injunctions, exculpation, and transactions needed for emergence source filing. The order capped a case that opened on May 10, 2020, when the Panama parent and 38 affiliates filed in SDNY after COVID-19 travel restrictions forced a suspension of scheduled passenger flights beginning March 25, 2020 source filing source filing.

At filing, Avianca was the second-largest airline group in Latin America and the largest in Colombia, with more than 5,350 weekly flights to over 76 destinations in 27 countries, primary hubs in Bogotá and San Salvador, and 21,556 employees as of December 31, 2019 source filing. The debtors reported about $7.02 billion of assets, $7.14 billion of liabilities, $5.36 billion of consolidated debt, and $473.6 million of unrestricted cash, including $169.4 million held in controlled or otherwise unavailable accounts. CFO Adrian Neuhauser framed the initial case posture as a liquidity-preservation restructuring: no DIP financing at filing, continued cargo, charter, repatriation, ferry, maintenance and restart-readiness operations, and first-day relief to pay employees, customers, critical vendors, fuel suppliers, interline obligations and foreign service providers source filing.