Prefect says there will be a gradual reduction over four years of 80% of the landing, lighting, parking and flight tracking fees.
Machala
The few passengers who move daily inside the Santa Rosa regional airport, which serves Machala, are entrepreneurs, executives and business owners who hire private flights to carry out their activities in the province of El Oro, where commercial flights They were suspended since the beginning of 2020.
“Currently we have more than 50 private flights (the capacity is 300 daily flights), the idea is to reactivate with commercial flights and we already have a commitment with the airlines that are interested in providing their services,” said the prefect of El Oro, Clemente Bravo, who is leading the project.
Bravo considers the provision of the Ministry of Transport for the General Directorate of Civil Aviation (DGAC) to update the incentive plan to reactivate the airports managed by this entity in 2022.
“There is good news for the province. Through ministerial agreement 063, incentives will be granted to new airlines operating on the Santa Rosa – Quito – Santa Rosa route, with the gradual reduction over four years of 80% of the landing, lighting, parking and flight tracking fees. In other words, there will be tariff preferences ”, said the prefect.
Bravo indicated that this will mean that the cost of the ticket is going to be cheaper and that operations at the Santa Rosa regional airport, which have been suspended for commercial flights since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, will surely be reactivated shortly.
This air terminal that serves Machala aimed to be a benchmark for connections for trade and tourism between the populations of southern Ecuador and northern Peru. During the government of Rafael Correa, the work was built at a cost of about 50 million dollars, but to date it has not achieved its objective.
Tame had flights to that airport. There was a season in which it operated with 10 weekly frequencies from Quito to the province of El Oro. But after the cessation of operations of the public airline, which went into liquidation in the midst of the pandemic, commercial flights disappeared. Before the pandemic, Latam had announced its plans to fly to that destination, but they were postponed by the situation.
“Prior to the analysis with mayors and private companies, we are demonstrating the feasibility of reactivating the airport and how this would contribute not only to the development of the province, but of the country, since El Oro is highly rich both in tourism and production, which generates development for Ecuador ”, expressed Fernando Egas, director of Planning of the Prefecture of El Oro.
José Luis Aguilar, Undersecretary of Air Transport, explained – on December 1 – that the National Government intends to reactivate air activity and for this they have generated an incentive plan for national airports, which consists of a reduction in the Fees that are paid in air terminals that are under the control of the Government.
“Through a joint effort with the Prefecture and the Municipality of Santa Rosa, we are succeeding in attracting the airlines to show them the potential of this province,” added the undersecretary, who met with the authorities of this province.
The Prefecture of El Oro has compiled information on the need for commercial flights that exists in this province, from all economic sectors that move through tourism, such as hotels, travel agencies, restaurants, etc., what it offers to the airlines the guarantee of ticket sales that they require to decide to fly to this destination.
“Airlines such as Latam, Aeroregional, Galapagos Airways and now Avioandes have received this information and we hope that they will decide to start operating in our air terminal as soon as possible. We are giving them all the facilities to start operating commercially and the more airlines we have, the better the prices they will offer us, ”added the prefect of El Oro.
Pablo Ochoa, representative of Avioandes, indicated that El Oro is a market in which they are very interested. The airport, located 30 minutes from Machala, began operations in 2008.
Its infrastructure has a 2,470 mx 45m landing strip, that is, it has the capacity to receive up to an Airbus A-320. It has a pre-boarding room for 252 people, radio aids, fire service and large parking spaces.
“We are just waiting for the certification to start operating here at the Santa Rosa airport, for us the market in Orense is very good and contributes to the development of the entire nation,” explained Marcelo Coque, president of Galapagos Airways, a of the airlines interested in the operation of the Quito-Santa Rosa route.
According to the reactivation project, it is intended to have three daily flights on the Quito-Santa Rosa route and vice versa, each flight would be from 45 to 120 passengers. (I)
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