RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Chilean low-cost airline JetSmart joins Brazilian Gol to increase the number of international airlines operating in Bolivia this year. The trans-Andean company will begin operations in the second semester on the Santiago de Chile-Cochabamba route, projected the executive director of the General Directorate of Civil Aeronautics (DGAC), General Ceiler Arispe, who also announced that Transporte Aéreo Militar Empresa Pública (TAM-EP) is in the process of returning to the skies.
“Gol Linhas Aéreas resumed its passenger transport operations on May 4, 2022, Jet Smart starts operations in the second semester, and TAM-EP is in proceedings to return operations as a civil airline,” Arispe indicated in the institution’s Initial Public Accountability 2022.
“JetSmart is a Chilean company finalizing its certification process (…) We, always taking care of our national airlines, have offered it international flights to Cochabamba, so we estimate that it could probably make a Cochabamba-Santiago and Santiago-Cochabamba route,” he indicated.
With JetSmart, there will be 15 airlines flying Bolivian skies, four domestic and 11 foreign. The local ones are Boliviana de Aviación (BoA), Amaszonas, Ecojet and Transportes Aéreos Bolivianos (TAB), which is a cargo airline. The international ones are Aerolíneas Argentinas, Air Europa, Avianca, Avianca Ecuador, Conviasa, Copa Airlines, LAN Airlines, LAN Peru, ParanAir, and AerCaribe, which is also cargo.
“In 2019, we transported about five million passengers; we intend this management to rise to 5.2 million or 5.5 million; it would be essential for civil aviation,” remarked the director of the DGAC.
Under the Bolivian Air Force and the Ministry of Defense, TAM-EP began civilian operations in March 2019, covering the La Paz-Cochabamba route and plans to reach Santa Cruz, Tarija, and Sucre in the short term.