The Bolivian airline Amaszonas will offer flights connecting Montevideo with Santa Cruz de la Sierra, via Asunción del Paraguay starting sometime in the next few months. Three or four flights a week by Bombardier CRJ200 jet with a capacity for 50 people will connect the two cities.
Liliam Kechichian, Uruguay’s minister of Tourism and Sport, said the new connection is “a signal that we are still seeing a Uruguay with a lot of confidence in its tourism development” after the collapse of Uruguay’s flag carrying Airline Pluna in the middle of 2012. The minister added that despite the fact that Amaszonas is a small airline, they have taken “confident first steps and not an other work methodology. I think what they are doing is correct.”
The subsecretary of Tourism, Antonio Carámbula, said the Bolivian company has had meetings with various public agencies and private companies in Uruguay and has started the standardization process with Uruguay’s National Civil Aviation Department (DINACIA). He said the presence of Amaszonas “will stimulate business and tourist travel in region”.
Uruguay’s presidential website states that Amaszonas is a private firm “in the process of expansion” with domestic routes inside Bolivia as well as flights to Peru, Paraguay and Brazil. The new connection between Montevideo and Santa Cruz will reopen a route that was abandoned for nearly a decade after the collapse of Lloyds Aereo Boliva.
Since Pluna’s collapse, Uruguay’s government has been actively courting airlines in an attempt to regain air connections. Two years after Pluna’s close, in April 2013, Carrasco International Airport received some good news: Air France KLM agreed to operate out of Montevideo. A little time later, in July of 2013, Air Europa launched its first flight from Montevideo to Spain. Iberia has announced it will resume flights to Montevideo starting in September and Qatar Airlines is expected to begin flights to Montevideo soon as well.
This Uruguayan Business Reports news article is a translation of a news article that appeared in the Uruguayan newspaper El Observador. The original article is available in Spanish here. Uruguay Business Reports translation by Donovan Carberry.
Uruguay Business Reports 