IATA urged the government to “completely eliminate” the quota

BOSTON, USA, Special Envoy – TheInternational Airline Association (IATA) said “optimistic” due to the government’s decision to reopen the borders for the entry of foreign tourists from November. However, he claimed that the new Chief of Staff, Juan Manzur, the abolition of the daily ceiling for passengers from abroad, which is transported from a ceiling of 2,300 people per day to 4,000.

IATA also called, once again, for the removal of the COUNTRY tax which taxes foreign travel, as well as the income tax surcharge which equates the value of the tourist dollar to that of the blue dollar.

The complaints were made by Peter Cerda, IATA Vice-President for the Americas, who hosted a press conference on Tuesday morning as part of the IATA Annual Meeting, which takes place at the Boston Park Plaza hotel.

Cerdá even ruled on an official initiative that is still being analyzed, which consists of the Ministry of Tourism paying Aerolineas Argentinas tickets to tourists from neighboring countries who commit at least three nights in the country. “It’s just for a single airlineYou are helping one company, not the whole industry, ”said the IATA official.

The IATA Assembly, the first to be held in a face-to-face Since the pandemic, he has focused his demands on all governments so that unify your input protocols for passengers coming from abroad. In the case of Argentina, Cerdá estimated that foreign airlines that have temporarily withdrawn from the market, such as Qatar, Turkish Airlines and Emirates, will take at least until March to reschedule scheduled flights. “It’s not something that can be done From one day to another“, noted.

According to IATA data, in 2020 Latin American airlines globally lost $ 5.6 billion and the estimate for this year is a loss of at least US $ 3,700 million. a 14% of these overall losses correspond to Argentinian airlines (US $ 700 million in 2020 and US $ 600 million this year), as detailed at Bugle its holder, Pablo Ceriani, who participates in this assembly.

Cerdá, regarding Argentina, said that “we are not celebrating but we are optimistic about the decisions that the Argentine government has taken and for this reason I congratulated the new chief of staff, with whom we asked a meeting, and the Minister of Health, on the measures they plan to implement to reopen in November. We therefore treat the month of October as a month of transition for a reopening of the country without restrictions or quarantines ”.

He adds: “But above all, it is important that the limit of passengers per day is eliminated. We must already eliminate that, it’s absurd, it doesn’t help. The fact that the passenger has to arrive in the country and wait two hours to go through a process means, in some cases, spending more time inside the airport terminal than many of the flights they originate from ”.

– Does IATA have data on the fact that Argentinian passengers are still stranded abroad?

-No. I know things are moving quite a bit. We have no news indicating that there are still a large number of passengers who have not been able to return to Argentina.

-There are airlines that have withdrawn from Argentina permanently, such as Air New Zealand, and others that have done so temporarily, such as Qatar, Turkish or Emirates. Do you have any details on the latter?

-I have yet to hear any official communication indicating that these airlines are returning to Argentina, and they have done so in other markets. I wouldn’t expect companies that left the Argentinian market to return this year. While the new rules come into effect in November, they leave very little room for them to plan sales, passengers, crews, planes for the months of December, January and February. He doesn’t give them time. The companies that have left the Argentinian market are global companies, with a very extensive network and it is not possible that overnight they will take a plane from one destination and put it in another.

-IATA has spoken out against taxes levied on foreign dollar spending. What about the Previaje program, which aims to pay for tourist tickets to Argentina’s neighboring countries?

-With regard to the PAIS tax, we are totally against any type of tax that limits the possibilities of the consumer, in this case to be able to travel or that it becomes more expensive to travel abroad. What the Argentine government should do, what we see in many governments, is eliminate fees for the tourism and travel industry. Because? Because they want to encourage more people to come to their country, to create a culture and to see tourism and travel as a very powerful tool in helping their economy to recover. Argentina is a beautiful country, with a lot of history, resources, very extensive, but if it remains uncompetitive, people will go to other countries.

-But in this sense there is precisely an initiative still under study that would subsidize tourists from another country to visit Argentina.

-But it’s only for an airline. You are helping an airline, not the whole industry. And I’m not saying no, because there are many programs around the world where local or national businesses are taking advantage of these programs. But what we are asking is that Argentina be competitive, that it does not impose taxes on tourism and that it allow airlines to further stimulate passenger incomes. This is what did not happen in Argentina.

-How do you see states subsidizing airlines?

-We have seen that at the global level, there has been strong economic support (from the States) in Europe, in the United States, in order to be able to maintain itself during this crisis. We don’t despise what’s going on. But in the case of Argentina, they should help all businesses, not just one, as they did in the United States or Europe. It is important that there is transparency, that there is a balance, and that when governments help the commercial aviation sector, they help the entire aviation community.