RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Low-cost airline JetSMART, controlled by U.S. investment fund Indigo Partners, inaugurated its route between Chile and Uruguay on Tuesday with an initial flight that landed at Carrasco International Airport, on the outskirts of the Uruguayan capital.
At around 7:30 a.m. (10:30 GMT), the 186-passenger Airbus 320 – which, according to authorities present, was traveling at 80% occupancy – landed at the international airfield and received the ensuing water baptism on the runway as the pilot and co-pilot waved Uruguayan and Chilean flags out the window.
For the company, which has been operating domestic flights in Chile since 2017 and since 2018 in Argentina, plus international routes to Brazil, Peru, and Colombia, adding Uruguay “means maintaining the airline’s growth pace, which aims to transport 100 million passengers in the region,” Dario Ratinoff, JetSMART’s commercial manager, told Efe.
The representative of the company, recognized in 2021 as “Best low-cost airline in South America” by the SkyTrax consultancy, recalled that the idea is to “continue opening destinations and markets”, among which he did not rule out “more routes in Uruguay”, such as Punta del Este, a significant tourist destination in the country and the epicenter of social life in the southern summer.
The plane’s arrival was also attended by Ignacio Curbelo, general director of the Secretariat of the Uruguayan Ministry of Tourism, who described as “extremely important” the fact that a new airline is arriving in the South American country.
Curbelo told Efe that “even though the health situation with Omicron is complicated in the middle of the season, the season is still on,” adding that greater connectivity “helps a lot so that the season can continue to develop”.
The airline JetSMART will connect Santiago de Chile and Montevideo with four weekly frequencies with the idea of boosting “tourism exchange between Uruguay and Chile”, said the representative of the Ministry of Tourism.
JetSMART is controlled by Indigo Partners, a fund founded by businessman William Franke and with investments in several airlines, including Wizz Air (Europe), Volaris (Mexico), and Frontier Airlines (United States).