Luis Ceriotto
10/21/2020 6:00 AM
Clarín.com
Economy
Updated 10/21/2020 8:07 AM
There are not many seats available: according to market sources,
70% is already sold
and there is still a day left to continue selling tickets (between
9,500 and 12,700 pesos
per section) before it takes off from
Ezeiza
.
It is an
Aerolineas Argentinas
flight
to
San Salvador de Jujuy
, scheduled for five in the morning on Thursday: it is
the first regular domestic flight
in Argentina after seven months.
What is striking is that less than 24 hours after his departure, that flight still
does not have the authorization of the National Civil Aviation Administration
(ANAC).
Not that flight,
nor the more than 100 flights scheduled by Aerolineas Argentinas
and other airlines operating in the domestic market.
The reason is that many of the provinces have
not
yet
communicated what requirements they will demand of the passengers
who will land in their cities.
And some provinces did not even inform national authorities
whether or not
they
decided to allow
the planes to land.
Until last night, the Ministry of Transport managed a list of 12 provinces that had answered that “yes” they will authorize the flights.
These are
Santiago del Estero, Corrientes, Chaco, San Juan, Tucumán, Misiones, Mendoza, Neuquén, Santa Cruz, San Luis, Córdoba, Chubut and La Rioja.
And the rest?
"Some provinces have already given their consent and others are still missing, because they are establishing the health requirements that passengers have to meet for entry," said ANAC sources.
"We hope that by tomorrow (by Wednesday) everyone will have already responded,
so that we can authorize the flight schedules
.
"
Regular passenger flights, both international and domestic, have been suspended since the end of March, until the Executive Branch eliminated this restriction in the last DNU that extended the social and mandatory isolation.
With this new framework, last week, the Ministry of Transport authorized domestic flights, with restrictions.
The most important:
tourists will not be able to travel
.
In this first stage, only those who are enrolled as "essential" workers, people who must undergo medical treatment with their companions, and a few other categories will be able to board.
Airline staff shows the protocols that passengers must follow.
But several provinces have yet to define what their requirements will be.
Photo: Aerolineas Argentinas.
In turn, the provinces that accept the arrival of the planes have the power to choose what type of monitoring protocol they will require from passengers.
“They
may ask for PCR-type tests with a 48-hour or 72-hour follow-up, or they may directly require compliance with a quarantine
.
We don't know, they don't tell us anything and our people in the area of operations don't know what to expect, ”they said in one of the airlines that requested authorization.
In another they were more confident: "The ANAC promised us news for Wednesday."
The almost exclusive protagonist of the return from cabotage is Aerolineas Argentinas, with a hundred flights scheduled only until the end of the month.
It is Aerolineas, simply, without the Austral brand, since the merger-absorption decided by the new authorities, led by Pablo Ceriani, is in process.
What other airlines are flying again?
The two "low cost",
Flybondi and JetSmart
, requested authorization to return to domestic flights.
The first JetSmart flight is scheduled for this Friday, from El Palomar airport.
But it does not have official authorization so far.
Flybondi requested dates starting in November.
Some of the requirements are common to all, beyond what each province ends up demanding: you must have the Unique Enabling Certificate for Covid-19 Circulation-Emergency, which must be completed between 24 and three hours before the flight departure .
All passengers must wear face masks and passengers with symptoms or fever will not be allowed to board.
“We were calling all the passengers one by one to ask them if they confirmed or not.
But now we do not know where we are standing, because they do not tell us if the flight will be authorized,
the governors do not define what they are going to ask for,
"they added in another airline.
