The Ministry of Transport has already ordered the DGAC to update incentives to reactivate the country’s airports, which have different complexities

The Minister of Transport and Public Works, Marcelo Cabrera, issued ministerial agreement No. 063-2021 which provides the General Directorate of Civil Aviation (DGAC) to update the incentive plan to reactivate the airports managed by said entity in 2022.

With the measure, which implies a reduction in rates and other costs, the Government hopes to create a more attractive environment for airlines to connect terminals where today there are no commercial flights that they previously had, such as Santa Rosa, Esmeraldas or Latacunga, or that passenger flights to destinations such as Manta, Cuenca or Loja increase.

To improve rates, we must increase competitiveness, says the Undersecretary of Air Transport, José Luis Aguilar, who anticipates that “the reactivation of airports also goes through an analysis of costs that airlines have to carry out to justify the air operation” in the terminals of those cities.

And each of them presents its own complexities. This has been confirmed by this medium through its network of correspondents in the country.

In Cuenca, for example, each month the Mariscal La Mar airport mobilizes about 16,000 users and at the moment the two available airlines only travel to and from Quito. One issue that causes them inconvenience is that they have not been able to evacuate the Embraer plane of the defunct public company Tame, which was stranded at the northern end of the runway after the accident that occurred in 2016.

Marcelo Carvallo, director of the Cuenca Airport Corporation (Corpac), which manages the airport, explains that this air terminal currently hosts two companies: Avianca and Latam, which together offer 30 weekly frequencies, from Monday to Sunday. The first with 23 trips and the second with seven.

This generates a weekly average of 4,000 passengers, those who depart and use Corpac services must pay a fee of $ 6.50. For now, what they receive monthly for their own operations represents 50% of their income, the remaining percentage is for the use of other dependencies such as parking of vehicles and leasing of offices to public and private entities such as a savings and credit cooperative, ATMs, restaurants , car rental, municipal pharmacy, Ministry of Government and a collection point of the public company Etapa.

But they also set up an office to pay municipal taxes, which according to Carvallo generated a rise in human trafficking that rose from 7,800 in June to 10,200 in October.

One of the pending issues is the overdue portfolio that they maintain, the largest is with the state company Tame, currently in liquidation, which to date owes $ 120,000 for keeping the Embraer 190 plane parked that crashed on April 28, 2016 and that, according to the DGAC report, among the probable causes were “the conditions of the runway (…) that was contaminated with water and slippery” and that “the landing was made after an unstabilized approach”. The problem that Carvallo warns is that when TAME disappears, the collection is complicated.

Tame’s outstanding commitments total $ 316.8 million, an amount seven times higher than its assets, valued at $ 45.1 million, according to data from the Public Companies Coordinating Company (EMCO).

Regarding the budget of the Cuenca airport, the amount for 2022 has not yet been approved, but its officials hope that it will at least remain similar to that of this year that ends, which was $ 4’900,000, of which 35 % was used for current expenses, including the salary of the 97 workers. The rest went to capital expenditures, such as improving services, consulting, works, etc.

In 2021, milling and replacement work was carried out on the asphalt layer in a three meter width of the track at the longitudinal construction ends. Meanwhile, for the coming year it is expected to make a total removal of the asphalt in the second half of 2022 thanks to an international loan.

Regarding a relocation of the airport to another area, Carvallo says that since 2012 there are studies for the new airport that should be complemented with others, meteorological and climatic, which are expected to start in 2022. But moving to another location is not an easy matter to define, especially when the flow of passengers does not justify the investment.

Emeralds, underused

With 40 passengers on board, the Aeroregional company made its last flight Esmeraldas – Quito, from the Carlos Concha Torres airport in Esmeraldas, in August of this year.

In September 2020, that airline assumed some frequencies left by Tame, whose liquidation was ordered on May 19 of that year by then-President Lenín Moreno. The idea was to offer low-cost tickets, but the COVID-19 pandemic, the closure of the Ecuador-Colombia binational border and the low demand for passengers, forced Aeroregional to temporarily suspend its operations.

“In this company the tickets fell to $ 70, while in TAME $ 120 were paid between Esmeraldas and Quito,” recalls the merchant Lorena Macías.

Ecuatoriana Airlines proposes three national routes to and from Manta

TAME had seven weekly flights (domestic) and three from Cali, Colombia. It had Embraer ERJ 170, Embraer ERJ 190, Airbus A320, Airbus A319, ATR 42-500 planes, the latter covering a route to Guayaquil. The company still hopes to sell those assets and for now is spending on maintenance, acknowledges Undersecretary Aguilar.

The Chamber of Tourism, the Chamber of Hoteliers, Governor Tania Obando and the Mayor of Esmeraldas, Lucía Sosa, arrange for an airline to resume these frequencies. One of them would be Ecuatoriana Airlines, which last June announced that it would assume the five weekly frequencies assigned by the DAC, although it would only begin operations in the first quarter of 2022 and would also operate in Manta, where the Municipality will now assume the delegation process. from your airport.

Tourism agencies make the same effort to reactivate the Esmeraldas airport, since the main economic income is visitors from Colombia, with the Cali-Quito-Esmeraldas route, says a representative of one of these operators, which has connections with companies in Mompiche and Atacames.

They hope that the Government will not only review national airfares, but also eliminate the payment of the foreign exchange tax (ISD) for national airlines (foreign airlines no longer pay it since August) and establish tax-free tourist corridors and tariffs.

Due to the lack of commercial flights, the Carlos Concha airport, located in the Tachina parish, in front of the city of Esmeraldas, is underused.

Private planes, two monthly flights to transport military personnel from Guayaquil, Armed Forces operations on the northern border, national candidates on the electoral campaign, government officials, are those that currently use this airport, whose remodeling, in 2014, cost $ 18 millions. (I)