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Flight restrictions: overflowing call centers and airplanes not enough to board all of them

2021-06-29T04:02:15.013Z


Airlines and foreign lines work with emergency diagrams before the decision of the Government to restrict 70% the daily quota of passengers that can reach Ezeiza. Miami is the destination with the most cancellations.


Luis Ceriotto

06/28/2021 12:49 PM

  • Clarín.com

  • Economy

Updated 06/28/2021 12:57 PM

Aerolineas Argentinas has

59 international flights canceled

, only in the next 13 days. That's not counting the winter vacation flights to

New York

, currently scheduled for July 19. The Aerolineas is the most forceful case of the forced cancellations that all the airlines are doing at this time, following the Government's decision to restrict from 2,000 to 600 (70%) the daily number of passengers that can arrive at the airport in Ezeiza.

Among the affected destinations, the number one is Miami: only in Aerolineas Argentinas

30 flights were canceled

(15 outward and the corresponding 15 in return), only between this Monday and July 11.

To these cancellations, we must add those of the US airlines, not yet informed. 

The reduction in passenger entry seeks to contain the Delta variant of Covid-19.

But among the tourism agencies and the airlines themselves a question circulated on Monday morning that spread rapidly in WhatsApp chats: "2,000 people a day are equivalent to 14,000 a week. Does the Argentine State have no

tools and people?

to effectively track 14,000 people per week? "was the question, not without irony.

"The call center is quite overflowing," was the laconic response of an Aerolíneas manager, when asked about the demands of the passengers. The local airline had increased its frequencies to the United States to ten flights per week, but also had to cancel flights to Santiago de Chile, Asunción, San Pablo and Lima, among other destinations. In the foreign airlines, on Monday morning they were reeling off flight cancellations one by one. 

LATAM

had requested authorization to carry out 45 days in the first fortnight of next month. Until noon this Monday, the National Civil Aviation Administration (ANAC) authorized only one, to Lima, on July 12. "We are waiting for what will happen to the flights requested to Chile and Brazil," they said in the Chilean capital airline.

Lufthansa

had been flying to Argentina only twice a week since the beginning of April, when restrictions began due to the second wave of Covid. Now the ANAC authorized them only one flight per week, which will land in Ezeiza this Thursday and the following. "We had requested two other flights, for July 3 and July 10, but they were not granted," said Corina Hanisch, director of the Argentine subsidiary of the German airline.

At

American Airlines

at the moment they do not have a clean record of how many of their flights will be canceled.

The US airline is the one that has been landing the most in Ezeiza, behind Aerolineas Argentinas: between 11 and 12 weekly flights from Miami and Dallas.

"At the moment there are no news," they said from the company, which has 500 employees in Argentina.

The airlines had been selling tickets with the current scheme since April, when the Government applied a quota of no more than 2,000 people per day among all arrivals to Ezeiza.

But after the Administrative Decision published this Saturday, which restricts the daily ceiling of passengers from international flights to 600, a foreseeable

bottleneck

was generated in all airlines

.

Even Lufthansa, the airline that sends the only Jumbo-type plane to land in Ezeiza (364 seats, between tourist, business and first), registered problems rescheduling its passengers. "The planes were already quite full, so these new restrictions

make things even more complicated

," Hanisch added.

Source: clarin

All business articles on 2021-06-29

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