Wednesday, March 22, 2017

President Macri announces Argentina National Air Transportation Policy

Argentine President Mauricio Macri announced the country's National Air Transportation Policy at the Casa Rosada presidential palace in Buenos Aires on March 6. 

Double the Number Of Argentine Domestic Passengers

The goal of the policy is to double the number of passengers traveling by air domestically within Argentina by the end of his presidential term in December 2019 from the current 10 million per year to 22 million annually.  This increase in passenger traffic is expected to generate 25,000 jobs in direct and indirect employment in the airlines and related travel and tourism businesses.

One of the reasons motivating this goal is that the air traffic of some of Argentina's neighbors has increased dramatically since 2000 while Argentina's has grown minimally.  For example, as of 2000, approximately 18% of Argentines, Peruvians and Chileans had flown at least once in their lifetime. As of today, 21% of Argentines have flown while 30% of Peruvians and 56% of Chileans have, demonstrating that there is considerable room for growth in the Argentine domestic air travel market.  

Three-Pronged Strategy

The doubling of passengers would be accomplished through: 

1) Increase the number of travelers carried domestically by Aerolineas Argentinas by 4 million per year (a 48% increase) through the addition of more aircraft currently on order that would be deployed on an increasing number of routes and with greater frequency.

2) Another 8 million annual passengers would be carried by other carriers, including existing airlines, such as Andes Lineas Aereas, American Jet and proposed new carriers, such as Flybondi, Avianca Argentina, Alas del Sur, Flyest and possibly even Norwegian and Irelandia Aviation (realeted to Ryanair). 

3) A 22 thousand million (22 billion in the US) peso investment (approx. US$ 15 billion) in improving the infrastructure at 19 airports, including upgrades to navigation systems to facilitate operations in inclement weather. 

No comments:

Post a Comment