MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
Falklands-UK air bridge talks give some hope for tourism expansion
Some hope for the future expansion of land-based tourism in the Falkland Islands is offered by high-level meetings, which are shortly to take place involving the British Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defence.
The subject of these meetings, it was disclosed to Mercopress by retiring Falkland Islands Governor, Mr.Howard Pearce, are the direct Falklands-UK-Falklands flights, known as the Air Bridge. These flights, which take off at five-day intervals and last some 18 hours, include a brief refuelling stop at Ascension Island. They are provided by the Ministry of Defence, as their main function is the carriage of military stores and personnel, but are currently operated under charter by a civilian airline, using a Boeing 747-300.
According to Mr.Pearce the focus of the discussions will be on ways of transforming the Air Bridge into "something which meets the needs of the civilian community better than it does at the moment, as well as continuing to meet the needs of the Ministry of Defence."
The Air Bridge currently operates out of the Royal Air Force Base at Brize Norton in Oxfordshire, which is not particularly convenient for most civilian travellers, whose presence on what is essentially a military base also creates security problems. The flights are expensive, with a return ticket for non-residents costing between £1668 and £2702, depending on the date of booking and there is a strict quota on the number of seats available for booking sufficiently far in advance to suit most tour operators.
The only commercial flight to the Falkland Islands is provided by LAN Chile. This service operates once a week, on Saturday, from Santiago with stops in both directions at Puerto Montt and Punta Arenas and a once monthly stop in Rio Gallegos, Argentina.
Originally operated with a degree of subsidy from the Falkland Islands Government, seat occupancy has risen steadily over the ten years since a regular jet connection with Latin America was established, to the point where the LAN flight often now operates close to capacity, especially during the tourism season.
The current planned attempt to improve the commerciality of the direct service to the UK is particularly important, as future development of the Chilean route is rendered impossible by the current refusal of the Argentine Government to allow permission for more frequent flights through its airspace, unless they originate from an Argentine airport.
Flights from Argentina are currently unacceptable to the Falkland Islands Government whose members fear having to return to the pre-1982 dependency on an increasingly hostile Argentina for communications with the mainland. This, it is thought, could happen if competition from state-subsidised Argentine airlines was able to burn off LAN Chile by drastic undercutting of flight costs.
The Argentine Government's banning of all charter flights to the Falkland Islands from Latin America some years ago has caused great damage to small cruise ship tourism in the Falkland Islands by making passenger exchanges difficult, thus forcing the operators of such ships to begin and end their cruises in other ports, usually Ushuaia in Argentina.
Falklands business man, Tim Miller, whose company grows fresh produce for the cruise ship trade, as well as for local consumption and who also imports much fresh produce from Chile, recently estimated that the ban on charter flights and its subsequent effect on the movements of the smaller expedition cruise ships had cost his company alone some £100,000 a year.
Where some operators of small expedition ships to South Georgia and the Antarctic have been able to route their passengers to the Falklands on the scheduled LAN flights at the beginning and end of their cruises, this has in itself increased the pressure on those flights, creating difficulties for in-bound tourism operators. Jenny Luxton, Tourism Manager of Stanley Services Ltd. is one such operator and claims that some of her clients have fallen foul of this pressure, which has already resulted in some of next season's LAN Chile flights being fully booked. Jenny welcomed the hope of increased tourist numbers afforded by possible improvements and civilianisation of the direct flight to and from UK, but warned that this would have to be accompanied by increased investment in the Islands' tourism infrastructure. Already a shortage of suitable accommodation on the Islands makes it difficult to arrange itineraries for tourists during the peak months of November and January.
John Fowler (Mercopress) Stanley
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