MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Buenos Aires main airports cancel all flights as communications system collapses

Many flights had to be sent to Carrasco airport in Montevideo

Flights began to be resumed late Monday in Argentina’s two main airports after they had to be cancelled due to technical problems with the Control Tower system.

All flights at the Metropolitan, Ezeiza and San Fernando airports were cancelled early Monday afternoon due to a failure that interrupted all communications between air traffic controllers and aircrafts making impossible to control the movement of airplanes on and around the airport.

Ezeiza in the outskirts of Buenos Aires handles 80% of Argentina’s international flights. An estimated 300 domestic and international flights were affected.

Airplanes were not able to land or take-off during hours. Each airline had to reschedule the flights that were to arrive and sent them to the airports of Rosario, Córdoba, Carrasco (Uruguay) or Sao Paulo in Brazil.

“The normalization of the service will be slow. Airlines will begin to reschedule their flights at 9pm,” Fernando Jantus, the head of Argentina’s ANAC national aviation administration, told the press.

However he anticipated that operations at Aeroparque (Metropolitan airport) will take longer to normalize. This means the Buenos Aires Montevideo shuttle will be further delayed.

President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner had to postpone her visit to Salta province until next Monday due to the Control Tower failure.

The Head of State was going to lead a rally at Salta province in the framework of the Kirchnerite candidates for the provincial election to be held in April 10