08/10/2020 - 20:39
- Clarín.com
- Economy
- Economy
The Minister of Transport, Mario Meoni, practically closed any possibility of domestic flights returning from September 1 , although he did not rule out that the start date could be "within two months", to the extent that achieve a single protocol for passenger tracking with all provinces.
"Cabotage flights are going to continue to be restricted , unfortunately," Meoni said during a videoconference organized by the Mediterranean Foundation. "Until we have guidelines from the Ministry of Health and from each of the provincial governors to regain this connectivity, we are going to keep a restrictive look , " added the official.
Commercial passenger flights have been prohibited since the end of March: they are part of the same presidential DNU that decreed the quarantine and which has been renewed between one and two times a month since then. But when in April the Civil Aviation Administration prohibited the advance sale of tickets for dates prior to April 1, all airlines, led by Aerolineas Argentinas, took for granted that that decree was an implicit start signal . Only Airlines already has about 50,000 tickets sold for flights scheduled between April 1 and October 30.
But from the Government there was no clear signal in all these months, neither from Transportation nor from other areas of the Executive Power. ANAC sources pointed out, in off, that there is strong resistance from a large group of governors to open flights, to avoid contagions that could be generated with passengers from the metropolitan region. In this context of uncertainty, what Meoni said in the Mediterranean videoconference is the closest thing to a specific term , at least so far.
"We hope that there will be a return in transportation in the next 60 days, for which the opinion of the public health system and of each of the governors is essential," said Meoni. "But it also depends on being able to establish an equal protocol in each of the provinces , which allows that, regardless of the origin of the passengers, when they arrive there is a common care," he added.
The minister also added that passengers will be required to use an "app" that allows them to be located in the places they visit . "It is also necessary to have a high degree of generation of awareness on the part of future users regarding the need for traceability of each of the passengers," said Meoni. "If we do not manage to have that traceability, which means accepting to have an app that allows that person when they arrive to know where they are going to be, during a certain period, it will be very difficult to generate the flight conditions."
