Luis Ceriotto
08/09/2020 - 10:01
- Clarín.com
- Economy
- Economy
It was, at least until Friday night, a muted conflict: the merger between Jet Smart from Argentina and Norwegian from Argentina, two of the "low cost" that arrived in the country from the Macri government, had been stopped by the new government, arguing that there were an enormity of technical issues that had not been approved even by Macri's people and that required a detailed analysis.
That was when the summer was middle. The officials in charge of analyzing the merger did not speak for or against : they let the weeks pass, first, and then the months. In the middle came the quarantine and the suspension of flights. JetSmart, of US capitals, took the claim to justice: it asked to be able to use Norwegian's aircraft parking permits at Aeroparque , which, incidentally, was the hard core of the purchase-merger between the two subsidiaries. JetSmart's claim rebounded in the first instance, but the company appealed and the Second Division of the Federal Court of Civil Appeals agreed with him .
By then it was mid-July, seven months had passed since the new government took office, and both the Ministry of Transport and the National Civil Aviation Administration (ANAC) had still not pronounced on the merger. Now, after the ruling of Justice, the Government came out to give a response that has no small aspect of counterattack: they intimidated JetSmart and Norwegian (the latter, despite the fact that they have already left the country) that in spite of the months that have elapsed without advancing with the merger process, now in 15 calendar days submit all the documentation that the process requires.
The ANAC also ordered the two airlines to "refrain" from making the merger process effective. At least an abstract intimation, since not only flights have been prohibited since mid-March, but also Aeroparque closed for works and will remain closed for at least four more months.
But the ANAC's response, extensive and meticulous, goes beyond the technical: with a reproachful tone, it states that JetSmart and Norwegian closed a purchase agreement on December 6, before having had the technical approvals of all areas that they should have intervened, and that they required at least 90 days before their final approval .
The head of the ANAC , Paola Tamburelli, also invoices her predecessor, Tomás Insausti, for having approved the purchase: "... the unusually brief procedure that preceded the issuance of the Resolution (...) merits the identification of each one of the interventions that fit the pre-opinionated areas, as they have been registered in the Electronic Document Management System (GDE) ", says Tamburelli in the recitals of Resolution 228 of this Friday.
Once the lengthy considerations have been finalized, the focus is in particular on JetSmart, an airline that until March was a small competitor of Aerolíneas and Austral, but which has strong external support, the Indigo Partners fund in the United States. And after the withdrawal of LATAM Argentina from the cabotage market, the union between JetSmart and Norwegian appeared as the main competitor that Airlines will have in the post-pandemic.
"The companies JetSmart Airlines SA and Norwegian Argentina are encouraged to submit to this Aeronautical Authority (the required documentation) within the extraordinary and peremptory period of fifteen calendar days ," says the ANAC text. What happens if there is a breach of the "peremptory" deadline? The agency warns that article 3 of Resolution 881 that the ANAC of Insausti had taken, the Cambiemos official, will make "effective". That article states that if all the requirements are not met, the merger falls apart.
The company responded cautiously. "JetSmart has been informed of an ANAC resolution suspending the implementation of the operations consolidation agreement between JetSmart and Norwegian in Argentina. As recently reported, the agreement was approved last year and ratified by the Federal Court of Appeals" says a statement issued Saturday. " This situation worries us as a whole in the context of the restart of the operation and the habilitation of the El Palomar airport." This airstation is where until March both JetSmart and its "low cost" competitor Flybondi had been operating: it is one of the symbols of the "airplane revolution" of the previous government.
So far, the Government has not specified which airports will be used when the regular flights return, for which there is also no set date , since they are prohibited by the same presidential DNU that month after month extends the quarantine . But Minister Meoni gave a clue by stating, days ago, that " the operation of El Palomar is not justified " for domestic flights. With Aeroparque closed for works for "four or five months," according to the operator Aeropuertos Argentina 2000, everything indicates so far that the Government would be inclined to use Ezeiza as the only airport for the entire metropolitan region.
