His concern regarding the need to address the necessary investments to enable the Bernardo O’Higgins airfield to receive commercial flights, expressed the president of the Chillán Chamber of Commerce, Alejandro Lama, who met this Monday with the regional governor, Óscar Crisóstomo, to whom he expressed the situation that occurred last week, in which the aeronautical company ATC Aviation had to cancel the arrival of ten charter flights (Airbus 320) with 160 Brazilian tourists each, scheduled for the winter season, because the air terminal was not meets the conditions to operate commercially.
“We have received concerns from an airline that wants to make direct charter flights from Sao Paulo to Chillán, from July to September, however, the General Directorate of Civil Aeronautics (DGAC) has problems to resolve, such as the personnel that dispatches, the system fire control, among others, and as a result of that the company chose to postpone these flights for next year, to the extent that these shortcomings are resolved, that is, it will not be possible this year, because the times are very limited. and there is no possibility of solving the problem immediately,” said Lama.
The main requirement is to have the SEI (Aircraft Rescue and Firefighting), Avsec (Aviation Security) and air traffic services, where it is urgent to invest in the acquisition of a firefighting car. Additionally, in the case of international flights, the presence of Immigration/PDI, Customs and SAG, among others, is a requirement.
The leader indicated that “we have expressed this concern to the governor, so that he can worry regarding how we develop and promote tourism in Ñuble, and we have found a very good reception from the governor, to take charge of this problem and talk with the DGAC to replicate the charter flights that were made decades ago with tourists who came to the Hot Springs.”
The local trade helmsman emphasized that “this is related to Sky Airlines’ interest in operating the Santiago-Chillán route three times a week, which also faces the same problem, in that the DGAC is not providing the requirements minimums to operate. Although the runway meets all the standards for an Airbus 320, the final push is missing so that Ñuble can have an airport and receive these international flights and local flights.”
For his part, Crisóstomo acknowledged that, “it is complex that, having an airport that we thought was operational years ago, today we have a new requirement from the DGAC to make the arrival of flights to our region feasible.”
The authority expressed that “we are going to continue with this commitment that we have, to be able to generate two great conditions: one short term, so that next winter (2025) flights can arrive directly from Sao Paulo and in this way, promote tourism in our region; and the second, which is medium-term, has to do with the acquisition of equipment and rolling stock (firefighting vehicles) for the airport, in a work that had been done with the DGAC and where we have assumed the commitment to finance “This equipment, which is several billion pesos, but we know that this investment will have a positive impact on the growth of Ñuble.”
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