Flight details of the new air link of the Falkland Islands with the South American continent, Sao Paulo in Brazil, were uploaded to the LATAM website on Wednesday. After a hiccup in the loading which suggested prices were in the £1000s the computerization was completed and a more attractive price was shown to be available.
“Extremely competitive” is how MLA Barry Elsby, speaking to Penguin News this week, described indicative fares for the new flight to Sao Paulo from the Falklands, beginning November 6.
An agreement has been finalised with LATAM Airlines Brazil to introduce a second international commercial air link to the Falkland Islands with a weekly service from São Paulo/Guarulhos (with a monthly stop in Cordoba, Argentina), complementing the existing weekly flight to Santiago, Chile.
Penguin News caught up with the Commander of British Forces for the South Atlantic Islands, Brigadier Nick Sawyer stationed in the Falkland Islands.
Falkland Islands' lawmaker MLA Barry Elsby told the Legislative Assembly that the new Latam flight to São Paulo is set to start in November, adding that contractual negotiations with the air carrier are “well advanced and nearing completion.”
Daniel Sebastian Ujhelly, an Argentine lawyer who had come to the Falkland Islands to take part in the Stanley Marathon was fined £650 in the Summary Court on Friday and ordered to pay £150 prosecution costs, after having pleaded guilty to an offence under the Fire Arms and Ammunition Ordinance 1987, reports this week's edition of the Penguin News.
Options for the extension of the Falkland Islands' Mount Pleasant airport passenger terminal will be considered by the local elected authorities in the coming weeks. According to Penguin News, quoting lawmaker MLA Barry Elsby, options will be put before the Executive Council early in the new year.
The Executive Council has today Wednesday authorised the Chief Executive of the Falkland Islands Government to complete the necessary negotiations with LATAM Airlines Brazil and to finalise a contract, subject to agreement with MLAs, to establish and operate a new weekly route between Sao Paulo and the Falkland Islands.
The proposed second airline service between the Falklands and South America with a once a month stopover in Argentina, drew both strongly voiced concerns and praise at a public meeting held on Wednesday evening in Stanley. Worried citizens suggested Argentina might manipulate Islanders by threatening to interrupt the link to Sao Paulo, Brazil in the longer term.
The second commercial flight from the Falkland Islands to a third country in the region with a stopover in an Argentine airport has been agreed, according to reports in Ambito Financiero, a Buenos Aires financial daily.