MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Lan Argentina aggress to fly four times a week to Rio Gallegos

Lan Argentina and the Patagonian Santa Cruz government agreed to three more weekly flights to Rio Gallegos for a six month trial period beginning November first. The announcement was made by Governor Daniel Peralta and Pablo Querol head of Lan Argentina Institutional Relations.

This means Rio Gallegos will be linked to Buenos Aires Aeroparque airport four times a week, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. Rio Gallegos bound flights will leave Aeroparque at 22:55 hours and return at 02:45 on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. "Increasing the number of flights to Rio Gallegos will consolidate Lan operations and offer more options to a growing demand which is expected to keep expanding particularly in summer months", said Lan' Querol. Lan Argentina has been expanding aggressively as the country's flag carrier Aerolineas Argentinas, which dominates the domestic market, faced mounting problems and was finally taken over by the government. An independent panel has still to decide the price to be paid by Argentina to the Spanish investor group Marsans. Lan Argentina has three daily flights to Iguazu waterfalls; three to the winter resort of Bariloche in Patagonia; five to Cordoba and three to Mendoza. Other destinations include a daily flight to Salta, two weekly flights to Comodoro Rivadavia and currently one to Rio Gallegos. Lan Argentina also has a daily non stop to Miami, six weekly to Sao Paulo and one to Dominica Republic. Meantime in Chile Air Comet and Sky Airline announced they would be teaming up in the Chilean market to better compete with Lan Airlines, which is far the country's dominating air carrier both domestically and internationally. "A commercial and operational alliance has been signed with the purpose of strengthening participation in the regional tourism and freight air transport market and face the current and future situation of the industry", said the two companies in a joint release published in Santiago. The alliance extends to corporative sales, international business, call centers, operations and maintenance among other fields. "The implementation of the alliance means the subscription of mutual commercial representation agreements for sales between both companies and Air Comet Spain for international connections". Air Comet belongs to the Spanish group Marsans and Sky Airline to the Chilean businessman Jurgen Paulmann.