This afternoon during a press conference led by the Minister of Transport of Argentina, Mario Meoni, it was announced te resumption of scheduled flights after sevent months.

Meoni said that they are preparing the resolution to leave flights rehabilitated starting «tomorrow or the day after tomorrow» all types of interjurisdictional transport.

«At first not all frequencies will be covered, but it will be done according to the evolution of demand and epidemiological possibilities of each province, because we have given that power to each governor.»

Yesterday, the Ministry of Transport had sent each jurisdiction a note in which it formally communicated the reopening of the flights and requested their position on whether or not they will accept the frequencies. The airlines will present their programming to the ANAC (National Civil Aviaction Agency) and the local authorities must approve them. Meoni said that «a vast majority of governors are open to receiving flights.»

Matías Lammens, Minister of Tourism and Sports pointed out that this is «a great step forward.»

«In recent months together with Mario Meoni we have been insisting a lot for the flights to return, without putting at risk the health situation, but understanding the importance of a country as large as ours being connected by air again,» said Lammens.

«We have worked with Mario Meoni and Paola Tamburelli to establish protocols that make it possible for travellers to do it in a completely safe way,» he added.

In the round of questions before the media present at the conference, the Minister of Transport was consulted regarding how the protocols will be for passengers to enter the different jurisdictions, whether quarantine or tests will be required, and he replied that, regardless of the existence of federal protocols, each province may apply its own.

This aspect would be quite negative for the aviation industry given that the lack of harmonization between 24 jurisdictions would be a significant disincentive for the demand, as passengers might find themselves going through a wide variety of protocols with differences between them.

“I understand that airplanes are not the problem, but often the passenger is. We are looking to have a traceability of each passenger so that local authorities can clearly know who traveled, in case, in the event of a positive case, all jurisdictions could be notified and contain outbreaks” said Mario Meoni.

Regarding international flights, the Minister said they hope to have it defined this week. He remarked that only Argentine citizens, resident foreigners or those who come to carry out specific tasks may enter the country.

An important issue is that the load factor of the aircraft will not be limited on scheduled flights.

In general terms, the conference left the airline industry unconvinced since more clarity was expected regarding which provinces would actually have flights again, what the protocol would be like for both domestic and international passengers, and exact dates of resumption, among other aspects that would allow predictability to both airlines and passengers.