MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Chilean budget carrier interested in domestic flights within Argentina

SKY would have to start and finish flights in Chile but would be allowed to make as many stops as it wishes within Argentine

Chilean budget carrier SKY has expressed its interest in operating domestic routes within Argentina given President Javier Milei's shift to “open skies” policies, as recent agreements with Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, Canada and Panama would corroborate.

Owned by the descendants of Jürgen Paulmann, co-founder with his brother Horst of the Jumbo supermarket chain, SKY currently flies from Santiago to Mendoza, Bariloche, and Buenos Aires.

Pursuant to Milei's Emergency Decree (DNU) 70/2023, Argentina has been deregulating its airline services since June 29, when the portions of the measure relevant in this regard became fully enforceablle after not being challenged.

Other agreements in force between Argentina and Chile, and also Uruguay allow an airline from one country to access domestic routes of the other, it was explained. And SKY intends to capitalize on that clause, Clarín reported this weekend. The company would thus fly within Argentina as a domestic airline, but with Chilean-registered aircraft and crews.

If everything goes as planned, Argentina would once again have three “low cost” airlines, as it did in 2019 (Flybondi, JetSmart and Norwegian, the latter leaving the country after selling its operations to JetSmart).

Sky was founded in 2001 in Chile by Jürgen Paulmann, who in Argentina was best known for being the brother of Hörst Paulmann. Born in Germany in the 1930s, they arrived in southern Chile in the late 1950s. Jürgen Paulmann passed away in 2014. His son Holger is the company's current chairman. The carrier has a fleet of 32 Airbus NEO aircraft averaging 2.7 years.

The bilateral agreement signed in May provides that flights must start and end in the country of origin, namely Chile. But nothing would prevent them from serving more than one destination within Argentina with the right to carry passengers between them.

The new agreement with Canada lifted the cap of seven weekly flights with a maximum of 2,000 seats and leave it up to carriers to arrange as many services as they believe to be profitable. The understanding with Panama also goes along similar lines.