MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Air-link Falklands/Sao Paulo “discontinued” or exchanged for a direct flight from Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires has offered as an option a direct flight to the Islands but through Buenos Aires and with an Argentine carrier.

Argentine media is reporting that Buenos Aires informed the UK is not willing to renew the 2019 political agreement which enabled the establishment of a second air link between the Falkland Islands and the continent (Brazil), but is prepared to discuss a new air link under different conditions.

Following the controversial revelations in a book by former Foreign Office minister for the Americas, Sir Ian Duncan, which led to speculations that the September 2016 joint communiqué was agreed with Argentine diplomats who had drank too much at an excellent wine cellar in the UK embassy in Buenos Aires, Guillermo Carmona head of the Malvinas, Antarctica and South Atlantic Islands Office anticipated that the Malvinas/Sao Paulo flight with a monthly call at Cordoba, Argentina, “had been discontinued,” since among other reasons the link was used to transport shifts of fishermen and oil industry workers, operating with licenses extended by the “illegitimate” government of the Islands.

Allegedly according to Carmona's office the 1999 original weekly link of the Falklands with Chile, with a monthly call at Rio Gallegos is to be resumed next July 2nd. But this will not be the case for November 2019 link from MPA to Sao Paulo and a weekly stopover in Cordoba. Both flights to Brazil and Chile have been cancelled for two years because of the pandemic.

However recently Buenos Aires told the Foreign Office that the Brazil/Falklands air link was no longer a priority, and as an option offered a direct flight to the Islands but through Buenos Aires and with an Argentine carrier.

Argentine sources consider that the Cordoba stop over is ridiculous and makes no economic sense, since Aeroparque or Ezeiza would make the link more attractive and profitable for tourism. “The market should decide which is the more profitable route,” Carmona was quoted.

Argentina is also aware that the Falkland Islanders wish more connectivity but are not prepared to receive any flights from Buenos Aires, much less with Aerolíneas Argentinas aircraft, arguing against all possible political reasoning or interpretations from the Argentines.

However unidentified sources from the Argentine foreign affairs ministry indicate “there is no intention of blocking the Islands”, rather “normalizing the South Atlantic”, and it is necessary to overcome misgivings from decades back. Apparently “normalizing” must also include downgrading the military magnitude of MPA, established contrary to UN General Assembly resolutions.

“The whole situation doesn't make sense, Nowhere in the world forty years after a war, and with no military threats, does such a level of isolationism exist”, points out Carmona's office. But allegedly according to Argentine sources, the British will not accept any conditions before sitting down to continue technical talks referred to the discontinued Sao Paulo/MPA airlink.