The state-owned company Transportes Aereos de Cabo Verde (TACV) announced today the resumption of flights between Praia, Sal, São Vicente, and Paris as of July 23, with two weekly frequencies.
“Cabo Verde Airlines [commercial name of TACV] will resume its operations to the French market, starting July 23, serving our diaspora and the tourism market,” says the company.
According to the available schedule, the company will conduct flights from Praia (Santiago island) to Paris on Sundays and return on Thursdays.
On Mondays, the flight departs from Paris to the island of São Vicente and then to the island of Sal after a one-hour stopover in Mindelo, while the reverse route is scheduled for Wednesday.
“According to the resumption plan, the company will gradually introduce more flights, foreseeing for the near future the return of the operation to the United States of America and Brazil,” guarantees the company.
The flights to France will be available in the system for reservations and emissions from Friday.
The resumption of connections to France, interrupted since the covid-19 pandemic, had already been announced on April 22, in Paris, by Cape Verde’s Minister of Communities, Jorge Santos.
“We presented at the embassy the new strategy of TACV, and the administration announced the flight for July 23, 2023, between Praia, Sal, São Vicente, and Paris in a Boeing B Max, which allows intercontinental flights.”
“This is a giant step in the resumption of Cape Verde’s connection with its diaspora,” said the Cape Verdean Minister of Communities, speaking to Lusa in the French capital.
For the minister, re-establishing this air connection through TACV is important.
France has one of the largest communities of Cape Verdean emigrants in Europe, estimating that more than 100,000 Cape Verdeans and their descendants live there.
“France is one of our European community’s epicenters of movement and mobility. It is a project that the Cape Verdean state is developing with great responsibility, and that will only happen in extraordinary cases,” he indicated.
TACV was sold (51%) to Icelandic investors and renationalized in July 2021 due to the covid-19 pandemic, having resumed flights only in December 2021.
In March 2019, the state of Cape Verde sold 51% of TACV for €1.3 million to Lofleidir Cape Verde, a company owned 70% by Loftleidir Icelandic EHF (Icelandair group, which took 36% of Cabo Verde Airlines) and 30% by Icelandic entrepreneurs with aviation experience (who took the remaining 15% of the privatized 51% share).
The company was renationalized in July 2021 and resumed flights to Portugal in December of the same year, initially between Praia and Lisbon.
Later, it also expanded flights to the Portuguese capital from the islands of Sal and São Vicente, a program still in place.
With information from Lusa