MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Last LATAM Argentina Airbus flies back home from Aeroparque which halts regional flights

LATAM Argentina is now part of aviation's history

Operation of regional flights at the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires (CABA)'s only airfield commonly known as Aeroparque Jorge Newbery Airport (AEP/SABE), which reopened recently following renovations, have been shifted to the Ezeiza Ministro Pistarini international airport (technically in the Province of Buenos Aires) due to lack of proper coronavirus detecting facilities.

Ironically, one of the last flights to leave from Aeroparque to a destination abroad in the past few days was LATAM Argentina's last surviving Airbus A-320 which was returned to its owners in Chile. The company, which decided to leave the country in February, did not own any of the aircraft that made up its fleet, although it had nine of them under Argentine registration.

The company has also announced that severance deals had been reached with 1,522 of the 1,715 local employees it had and that the other 193 were given compensations as per the local legislation in force.

Meanwhile, Aeroparque's management has announced regional flights will return as soon as the new laboratory in charge of testing travellers is ready to proceed. Passengers arriving into the country must undergo the RT PCR test for AR $ 6,000 (US $ 40 based on the unofficial exchange rate) the result of which is available two hours after the test, and/or the Antigen PCR test, at a cost of AR $ 4,000 (US $ 33.33), within the next five minutes.

An average of two daily regional flights were operating to and from Aeroparque, by Aerolineas Argentinas, JetSmart and ParanAir.