Luis Ceriotto
12/12/2020 6:00 AM
Clarín.com
Economy
Updated 12/12/2020 8:48 AM
Flybondi will start flying regular domestic flights again from
Saturday
, the company announced, with flights from
Ezeiza
airport
to
Puerto Iguazú, San Carlos de Bariloche and Tucumán
.
In this way, the airline that three years ago
was the symbol of the landing of the "low cost" in Argentina
accepted the Government's proposal to move its base of operations from the El Palomar airport, which from now on remains
empty of airlines
.
Last month the other airline that operated in El Palomar,
JetSmart
, also started flying from Ezeiza.
The transfer to Ezeiza of Flybondi, which Clarín anticipated on Thursday was after confidential negotiations between the directors of the companies and officials of the
Regulatory Body of the National Airport System
(ORSNA).
Although Flybondi stated that its transfer to Ezeiza is "temporary", the specific thing is that the airline would have obtained from the ORSNA
the commitment of a valuable "mooring" for its planes in the
Metropolitan
Airport
, once the expansion works are completed of your track.
This "mooring" would only be for domestic flights, since to make flights to neighboring countries they would have to continue operating from Ezeiza.
Flybondi, controlled by the US investment fund
Cartesian
, brought in one of the only two aircraft left in its fleet on Thursday, a Boeing B737-700 that was being conditioned in Mexico.
During the remainder of December, the airline announced that it will fly to 12 national destinations, which include Córdoba, Corrientes, Jujuy, Mendoza and Neuquén, among other destinations.
By January, company spokesmen said, it could add a second aircraft to domestic and regional operations.
Flybondi began flying in January 2018 from El Palomar and, following the government's refusal to reopen that airport in October, the company had deployed
a battery of legal presentations
to reverse the measure.
But,
in a silent way, there were negotiations that ended with the transfer to Ezeiza
with reduced airport fees, according to official sources.
The negotiation by the Government was led by
Fernando Muriel,
vice president of ORSNA and leader of the
La Cámpora
group
, who politically reports to the national senator and former president of Aerolineas Argentinas,
Mariano Recalde
.
Esteban Tossutti,
the president of Flybondi, implied that the negotiation was to
continue operating
.
"For us, December 12, 2020 will mark a milestone in the company: despite all the changes we have undergone,
the important thing is that today the 542 people who make up the Flybondi team are ready to return,
" he said in the press release.
The El Palomar station, which had always functioned as a military base, was authorized by the government of
Mauricio Macri
for regular passenger flights with large aircraft as of January 2018.
The inaugural flight was precisely Flybondi and from there El Palomar became a symbol of the "airplane revolution" of the previous government.
In 2019 alone,
1.7 million passengers
passed through El Palomar
, according to data from the concessionaire Airports Argentina 2000.
1,000 people
work directly at the Buenos Aires air station
.
Flybondi and JetSmart workers organize a protest in front of El Palomar airport in August.
JetSmart has been flying in Ezeiza since November and now Flybondi has also followed in their footsteps.
Photo: Rafael Mario Quinteros
"The problem
was never with Flybondi,
the discussion was focused on El Palomar," said sources close to ORSNA.
Precisely, from now on the fate of the employees of that airport
becomes even more uncertain
.
Look also
End of the low cost airport?
Flybondi would also leave El Palomar
