American Airlines announced February 18 that it is launching daily nonstop flights to and from Medellin’s Jose Maria Cordova (JMC) international airport to New York’s JFK international starting May 6.

American simultaneously is expanding code-share flight deals with JetBlue for ticket purchases starting February 22, according to the companies.

“American’s customers will have access to 49 codeshare routes on JetBlue, while JetBlue customers will have access to more than 25 routes on American,” including future international routes, according to the companies.

Viva Air Expands Nonstops from MDE

On a related front, Viva Air announced February 16 that from its new “hub” at JMC, it will launch nonstop service to and from Mexico City starting June 8, while nonstop service to and from Cancun starts June 2. Medellin-Orlando nonstop service will start June 12, according to the company.

Colombia President Ivan Duque announced this morning (February 15) that the nation will receive the first 50,000 doses of Pfizer Covid-19 vaccines today, followed by 1.6 million more doses from various providers over the next three weeks.

As a result, the first vaccinations will start here right away -- a few days in advance of an initially projected February 20 start-up date.

Front-line doctors and hospital workers are first in line for vaccinations through the “MiVacuna” national program (see: https://mivacuna.sispro.gov.co/MiVacuna), along with people 80 years and older. Next in line are those between 60 to 79 years of age.

“We have acquired through direct purchases from pharmaceutical producers as well as through the multilateral Covax program 61.5 million doses, with which we will vaccinate 35 million Colombians in 2021,” added Colombia Health Minister Fernando Ruiz.

According to Colombia’s Office of Information Technologies and Communications (OTIC) director Weimar Pazos Enciso, the “MiVacuna” national computerized database taps patient-data input from EPS health-insurance networks as well as "different sources such as the National Registry [citizen and resident cedulas], the Ministry of Education, and Migration Colombia, among others.

“From the consolidation and purification of data, today we have the information on more than 35 million [vaccination candidate] prioritized Colombians. This has been available since February 5, so that people can consult the vaccination [priority] stage according to the different criteria established in the ‘plan nacional de vacunacion’ [PNV]," he added.

The “MiVacuna” web page “has a very robust infrastructure supported by 22 servers that support the database and the concurrence of each of the different phases of PNV,” he said.

Meanwhile, Health Ministry Chief of Staff Germán Escobar added that Colombia expects to receive this month 100,000 doses from Pfizer via direct purchases; another 117,000 doses of Pfizer vaccine via the Covax program; 192,000 doses from Sinovac; and 750,000 doses from AstraZeneca via Covax.

In March, Colombia is scheduled to receive 500,000 more doses from Pfizer via direct purchase; another 2.3 million doses from Sinovac; then another 1.75 million doses from AstraZeneca via Covax.

“Based on these estimates, [vaccine distribution] planning processes have been developed with the different departments and districts to consolidate their respective requirements for the National Vaccination Plan,” according to Escobar.

Medellin Receives 1st Ultra-Cold Freezer

On a related front, Medellin’s Health Secretary Andree Uribe Montoya on February 13 confirmed the receipt here of the very first ultra-cold freezer for proper storage of the Pzifer-BioNTech vaccines.

This first of several freezers being delivered here can hold 40,000 Pfizer vaccines at a temperature of -80ºC, in addition to other freezers already existing at various locations here, she added.

As for the broader Antioquia departmental preparations, Antioquia’s Covid-19 program director Leopoldo Giraldo added that mayors, health agencies, health insurance network directors, hospitals, clinics and essential health workers throughout the department and the Medellin metro area have already undergone intense training and consultations on Covid-19 vaccination management and coordination.

Meanwhile, Julián Fernández-Niño, Colombia’s Director of Epidemiology and Demography for the Health Ministry announced that Colombia has already confirmed via the “MiVacuna” program vaccination appointments for 263,000 front-line medical personnel along with 19,000 medical support workers for Stage 1 of the program.

In addition, another 200,000 medical workers are now in the MiVacuna queue for Stage 2 vaccinations, he added.

Medellin’s continually expanding zero-emissions public transport network got another boost February 10 with the start-up of new charging stations for its 60 pure-electric “Metroplus” buses.

The new stations, in the Patio Fátima neighborhood, enable bus recharging 24 hours a day, seven days a week, according to a bulletin from the Medellin Mayor’s Office.

The new station boosts charging capacity for buses serving lines 1, 2 and O of the “Metro” public transit system. This system also includes all-electric “Metro” rail, “Metrocable” aerial trams, surface trams, electric buses and a growing network of “EnCicla” bicycles and bike pathways. Furthermore, by 2026, Medellin will add the "Avenida 80" all-electric light-rail tramway serving many of the city's western neighborhoods.

The new recharging facility at Patio Fátima adds six new bus chargers in addition to seven existing chargers at the Terminal del Sur station and the Universidad de Medellín station, hence making the “Metroplus” operation “more efficient in terms of schedules, flows and recharging capacity,” according to the Mayor’s Office.

“The new chargers, which have 210 kilowatts of power each, allow up to 12 vehicles to be connected simultaneously, giving 300 kilometers of autonomy” per recharge.

Meanwhile, Medellin continues to develop a related “Transport Logistics Center” adjacent to the downtown Olaya Herrera Airport. This project will allow Metro to “expand by 20,000 square meters the recharging, parking and maintenance spaces” for the city’s all-electric vehicle operations.

In what critics see as a disturbing habit of recklessness and political capriciousness, Medellin Mayor Daniel Quintero and his hand-picked Board of Directors of city-owned public utility EPM on February 1 fired EPM general manager Álvaro Guillermo Rendón.

Rendón -- himself hand-picked by Quintero to take over as EPM general manager in January 2020 upon Quintero’s election as Medellin Mayor – is just the latest victim of  growing turmoil inside EPM, as EPM unions and civic groups slam Quintero's capriciousness and his appointments of political hacks rather than technocrats in several key executive positions.

Quintero, with a circus-empresario political flair -- accompanied by his now-departed, sedate alter-ego Rendón, a lawyer with no engineering experience in a company that is overwhelmingly engineering-driven -- last August had made what critics say could turn out to be a catastrophic decision to sue EPM’s construction contractors at the US$5 billion Hidroituango hydroelectric project, as well as propose a mind-boggling, quixotic series of changes to EPM’s business model.

Those moves -- taken without consulting EPM’s prior Board of Directors -- triggered an unprecedented mass resignation of the entire Board last August.

Then, two days ago (on January 31), Rendón publicly released a letter asking EPM’s board to consider Quintero’s previously secret demand for his resignation, only days after Quintero had falsely denied publicly that Rendon must resign.

But as of this morning (February 2) neither Quintero nor the EPM Board have given any public explanation for the firing -- or explain what is really happening inside EPM – in defiance of EPM’s mandatory, legal requirement for transparent corporate governance.

Meanwhile, in a February 2 interview with Colombia’s Blu Radio network, Rendon revealed that his clash with Quintero arose because Quintero has been pressuring Rendón to appoint political hacks to key management positions.

“The mayor, on January 14 [2021], asked me to resign, a decision that I found a bit intriguing," Rendon stated in the Blu Radio interview. “Mayor Quintero told me: 'I want a person to copy me more.' I think the mayor still assumes that EPM is his personal dispatch secretary,” he added.

Proantioquia Slams Manipulations

Medellin’s leading civic group Proantioquia on February 1 publicly slammed the Mayor’s manipulations, “just as we did on August 12, 2020, after the massive resignation of the Board of Directors.”

“It is an obligation to respect the administrative independence of the company as defined by the principles of good corporate governance and the framework agreement of relations between the municipality of Medellín and EPM, in force since 2007,” Proantioquia noted in a press statement.

“In just one year of the current administration, EPM has been immersed in various crises. First, the request to change the corporate purpose of EPM that alerted the international risk-rating agencies and over which there was no political control prior, nor a participatory public conversation.

“Then, the full resignation of the Board of Directors for the decisions that were not consulted on the change of the social object of the company, and the lawsuit filed against the builders and auditors of Hidroituango.

“Third, the inappropriate way of handling matters related to the constitution of the new Board of Directors, ignoring what is required by corporate governance to guarantee transparency, rigor and plural participation in the formation of the company.  And more recently, the departure of the General Manager appointed by the Mayor after just one year, his trusted interlocutor and whom he supported only 10 days ago in the media via a communication to all citizens.

“We emphatically reiterate that EPM’s administration requires technical, legal and financial rigor. Therefore, we demand that the Mayor of Medellín and the Board of Directors -- assuming the statutes of the company and the rules of corporate governance -- make decisions based on the institutional stability of the company, guaranteeing the provision of public services and transparency before the community and its groups of interest.

“Finally, we summon the citizens, the Medellín City Council and the national and territorial control entities to activate their social and legal mechanisms for EPM’s protection. The welfare of our city, and the energy stability of the country, are linked to the sustainability of EPM,” Proantioquia concluded.

Medellin Chamber of Commerce Rips Political Schemes

Meanwhile, Medellin Chamber of Commerce executive president Lina Vélez on January 31 issued a public statement slamming Mayor Quintero’s bizarre behavior in directing EPM.

“It is incomprehensible that, for a young mayor who by his own academic merits achieved a specialization in finance at the University of the Andes and a Master's degree in business administration from the University of Boston, does not want to understand and abide by governance statutes for public administration that are written in basic Spanish,” Vélez said.

“For the sustainability of the company and for the confidence of the international and national financial markets [upon which EPM’s financing depends] it is essential that another crisis does not repeat itself.

"[Mayor Quintero and the EPM Board] have the obligation to publicly explain why, for the first time in EPM’s recent history, a manager lasts barely a year. The responsibility of directing Grupo EPM, made up of 47 multinational companies with an equity of more than COP$22 trillion (US$6.15 billion) . . . is in the hands of its Board of Directors and common sense.

“If the current framework agreement governing relations between the municipality of Medellín and EPM is not the most appropriate, then from the Chamber of Commerce of Medellín for Antioquia we call upon the City Council to prioritize its debates and establish a scheme of mandatory compliance with the model of corporate governance for EPM.

“I also urgently await the IDB's [International Development Bank] intervention in this [corporate governance] model,” she added.