Andes CRJ-900's Short-Lived Life with the Airline

Andes leased two CRJ-900's from Bombardier in 2010 but only operated them for just over a year before returning them to the Canadian manufacturer in August 2011. 

They were operated mostly on scheduled routes from AEP (Buenos Aires - Aeroparque) to SLA (Salta), home base for the airline where it was first formed in the mid-2000's. One of the reasons for the return of the aircraft was seriously diminished passenger traffic due to the frequent closures of airspace across the center of Argentina (including Buenos Aires) caused by drifting ash from eruptions by the Puyehue volcano in Chile since early June 2011. This problem continues from time-to-time to this day though the volume of ash is considerably smaller than when the eruptions first took place.

Andes' scheduled routes have been taken up by the carrier's MD-80's but the airline's main business is its charter operations.

Pictured above landing on AEP's runway 13 is Andes CRJ-900 LV-CFD on 10Oct10.  The plane, which was originally delivered to Atlasjet in 2006, was delivered to Andes on 07Jun10 and returned on 13Aug11.

LV-CGW was delivered to Andes on 29Sep10 but returned to Bombardier on 13Aug11. Here it is pictured taxiing for takeoff at AEP on 29Jan11.

Source: www.planespotters.net
Photos: Phil Perry