Argentine airline to resume flights to three Brazilian destinations

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Aerolíneas Argentinas will fly again to three destinations in Brazil that have been suspended. As of April, it will have direct flights to Porto Alegre, Curitiba, and Brasilia from Aeroparque Jorge Newbery, with four weekly frequencies.

The flag carrier has not flown to Porto Alegre or Curitiba since the beginning of the pandemic in March 2020, while the route connecting Buenos Aires with Brasilia was suspended four years ago.

It is a strategy that the company will implement to reactivate inbound tourism, which has not yet recovered. The current demand for international travel represents 45% of the airline’s pre-pandemic volume.

“We have two main focuses: expanding domestic connectivity and bringing in tourists from abroad. We will continue working to meet these objectives. The routes connecting Argentina with Brazil that have been announced encourage inbound tourism. We will offer reasonable fares that are attractive,” said Fabián Lombardo, Commercial, Planning, and Route Management Director of Aerolíneas Argentinas.

In April, the company will also resume daily flights between Buenos Aires and Madrid, Spain. The airline stopped flying once a week between both destinations with the coronavirus outbreak.

The company is optimistic about the future, although it knows that international recovery will not be immediate. However, it estimates that it will recover as the restrictions in force in different countries ease.

DOMESTIC FLIGHTS WITH A HIGH LEVEL OF BOOKINGS

In the local scenario, the situation is different. Aerolíneas is already carrying 88% of its traffic before Covid-19 and expects to reach 93% in March. “In the second quarter, we expect to reach 100% of the pre-Covid volume. In January, we carried 720,000 passengers to domestic destinations, out of 860,000 people who flew on our flights,” said Lombardo.

In turn, the executive highlighted the relevance of the PreViaje program, which 4.5 million Argentines have already used. “It anticipated sales. Generally, local reservations are made one month before the date of the trip. With this stimulus plan, they were brought forward by more than three months”, he concluded.

The most chosen domestic destinations were Bariloche (Río Negro), Ushuaia (Tierra del Fuego), Calafate (Santa Cruz), Córdoba, Mendoza, Salta, Iguazú (Misiones), Mar del Plata (province of Buenos Aires) and Tucumán.