HIGH: consensus on standards for COVID-19 is the biggest challenge for airlines in Latin America

The homologation of requirements related to the pandemic from coronavirus for international travelers is the main challenge in the recovery of the airlines of Latin America, that although it advances, threatens to hold back from not achieving consensus with the health authorities, said executives of the sector in the region.

Passengers suffer from constant delays and restrictions when traveling from one country to another due to differences in the rules at the time of entry, in search of containing infections of different strains of COVID-19.

“Homologation is strictly necessary to generate confidence for people to return to fly,” said Jose Ricardo Botelho, executive director of the Latin American and Caribbean Air Transport Association (ALTA).

For representatives of the sector, the differences lie in the diversity of requirements established by the various health authorities between nations for international travelers.

“What is missing now is for us to agree and not have these requirements so different between countries, which change so frequently, because what generates uncertainty for the passenger, also difficulties for the airlines themselves and airline personnel ”Said Pedro Heilbron, president of Copa Airlines.

“When someone carries passengers and there are thousands of requirements, it is practically impossible for some passengers not to have the correct role,” he added to journalists at the start of the annual meeting of airlines in Latin America and the Caribbean, on Saturday in Bogotá.

The manager said that there are even countries that are fining airlines for some failures in meeting the requirements for the arrival of passengers, which he refrained from revealing.

Nearly a year and a half of travel restrictions have put airlines and airports around the world under severe financial pressure, requiring a more complete reopening in order to recover and maintain millions of jobs.

“In general there are quite a few agreements and in general there is a relative standardization, but the big differences come from the health authorities,” emphasized Lucas Rodríguez, head of the air transport office of the Civil Aeronautics of Colombia.

Attention to the requirements to minimize COVID-19 contagion among air travelers has caused additional costs for airlines, some of which already suffered from red numbers on their balance sheets since before the pandemic.

The International Air Transport Association (IATA), the industry’s leading trade body, earlier this month revised the net losses in airlines for this year to $ 51.8 billion, from $ 47.7 billion estimated in April.

But the agency estimated that the negative balance would drop to about $ 11.6 billion in 2022.