The service of this state airline will begin to be provided in the first quarter of 2024
With good news for Cauca, it concluded today, December 4, at the Civil Aeronautics in Bogotá, the Department’s Air Connectivity Table, a meeting in which Satena, the state airline company, returns with five routes: Popayán-Medellín and Popayán-Cali. Additionally, Popayán-Guapi, Popayán, Timbiquí and Popayán López de Micay.
Since last June, the Cauca Chamber of Commerce, through its executive president, Ana Fernanda Muñoz Otoya, had been taking steps to carry out a new Air Connectivity Table for the department of Cauca. The first thing he achieved was the Easyfly flight, now Clic, to Medellín, but unfortunately the company withdrew that route. However, the Chamber continued to update the information with a vision towards the community tourism that it promotes on the Pacific Coast, so it insisted and with the collaboration of the Competitiveness Commission, continued the approaches with officials of the Civil Aeronautics, after three months of work, that official company scheduled the meeting of the Air Connectivity Table of the Department of Cauca for December 4, 2023, after having reviewed the presentation model that would be taken to Aeronautics, which requested the names of the guests.
Given the tourism focus of the Connectivity Table, with the presentation of the Cauca Turístico and the Cauca Universitario, the Cauca Chamber of Commerce suggested Governor Elías Larrahondo Carabalí as guests; to the elected governor, Octavio Guzmán; Mayor Juan Carlos López Castrillón; to the elected mayor, Juan Carlos Muñoz Bravo; to the representative of the universities and the unions Cotelco, Acodrés, the Inter-Union and Business Council and the Chamber of Commerce, the entity that championed the process.
At the invitation, made directly by Aerocivil, with the agenda, which was basically the presentation of Aeronautics and the departmental or municipal authorities, They did not attend, Only the elected mayor, Juan Carlos Muñoz Bravo, attended.
For her part, the executive president of the Cauca Chamber of Commerce, Ana Fernanda Muñoz Otoya, presented the information from the department of Cauca. In addition, she thanked the airline Clic for the immediacy with which, last January, given the emergency caused by the landslide in Rosas, Cauca, it put the flight into service. She also recognized Aerosucre for the times it has helped transport cargo during times of blockade of the Panamericana; The same goes for TAC, a company that has also kept the friendship with Avianca connected to the Pacific Coast, which has been pending with the largest flights.
The Department’s Air Connectivity Table met, in which five new routes in Cauca were announced by Satena.
“It was an exercise in recognition of many actors with whom we have developed working relationships for six years. In the end, the manager of Satena, whom we asked to announce the news, which he had already given us, confirmed that the board of directors of that company approved, on November 9, Popayán as a base of operations and to resume the Popayán-Medellín flights. ; Popayán-Cali and the three municipalities of the Pacific Coast of Cauca. It is an immense gain that only one of the airlines has offered five additional routes, according to the schedule, they would begin operating in the first quarter of 2024,” said Muñoz Otoya.
In turn, the elected mayor of Popayán, Juan Carlos Muñoz Bravo, stated that the new routes are excellent news for tourism to return to Popayán. “With the productive sector we are articulating several aspects to visualize Popayán and the department to move forward,” he said.
Charter flights
Likewise, the president of the Chamber of Commerce, indicated that the airline that represents small non-regularized transporters, with small planes that make flights on demand, requested a meeting with the tour operators of the department to analyze what they can offer in terms of flights. charter. They have the Páez-Belalcázar heliport on their radar.
Furthermore, the executive commented: “We made a clear and direct mention of two issues that the Chamber of Commerce has been working on for a long time, even with the previous director in charge of Aeronautics, Francisco Ospina, in a bill to obtain a subsidy from the airports of large cities to intermediate cities in order to make fuel cheaper, because 30% of the cost of the air ticket corresponds to gasoline and another 30% to taxes. If we manage to reduce any of those two lines, whether taxes, it can be at the municipal or national level and reduce the cost of fuel with a subsidy, it would be very positive. This initiative was well received by the Air Connectivity Table. The other aspect refers to the pipeline, because it is not only for transporting gasoline and diesel, but also for aircraft fuel, which would reduce costs. The construction must be assumed by the nation, not the departments, which in this case would be Cauca and Nariño.