Tenerife airline will take off in 2021
The president of the Tenerife Cabildo, Pedro Martin, announced yesterday that in 2021 Tenerife will have its own airline to bring tourists to the island, 25% of which will be owned by the Cabildo itself, to "avoid the permanent dependence we have on tour operators" and other companies in the air transport sector.
Martín made the announcement as part of the framework of the presentation of the institution's budgets for 2021, explaining that it is an amendment of 700,000 euros negotiated between the group of Government PSOE-Cs and Sí Podemos, for a proposal that the Hoteliers Association (Ashotel) has been working on for the last couple of years.
Martín explained that the initiative is, "clearly Canarian and mainly from Tenerife, promoted by a group of small and medium-sized businessmen on the island," and its objective is "to stop us being spectators of flight prices, because we have already seen that the contribution of the State of 75% for national travel, has left the situation the same instead of bringing down ticket prices".
Martin believes that this harms "Tenerife residents who are registered in the mainland but have their family here, and tourists who want to come and have a getaway", who, he says, should have "the opportunity to find a ticket at a reasonable price and not the ones that the airlines have been charging lately.”
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Initially, the project is designed to cover routes with the mainland of Spain, although the president of the Cabildo does not rule out that international routes will be incorporated at a later date. In any case, he indicated that it is still too early to go into specific details, taking into account that the island administration will not move until February, when the new accounts are expected to come into force, which will be debated and approved today in a plenary session, at which point, he said, "we will begin to work to sign the necessary agreements and propose a schedule in which a first aircraft can be obtained and the company can start up, although this does not only depend on us, because we will not be the majority shareholders, but we will promote everything we can," he added.
Asked about the regional government and its role in the initiative, he pointed out that "We did not want to wait any longer, and we understood that the approval of the budgets was an ideal moment for this item to be incorporated. We are encouraging public participation in everything that has to do with connectivity; hence we reached an agreement to make a contribution of 700,000 euros with which we will be able to participate within the company, just as the Cabildo participates in others such as the Teide Cable Car. I believe that public and private participation can be sought to achieve the objective that we all pursue: better connectivity at fair prices.”