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Lusa - Business News - Cabo Verde: Risk of no domestic flights as of Monday
Praia, May.13,2021(Lusa)-Inter-island flights in Cabo Verde risk being suspended within four days, with TICV, the only company providing these links, not offering tickets to any destination from Monday. According to a consultation made on Thursday by Lusa, Transportes Interilhas de Cabo Verde (TICV) is only offering flights until Sunday, 16 May, and all connections and dates thereafter remain unavailable, as they have been for several weeks, making it impossible to buy tickets via the company's website or travel agencies. Lusa contacted TICV management but did not explain this, which follows the unavailability of tickets in March for flights in April and then in May, in this case only until 16 May. However, the situation has never involved such a short deadline. According to industry sources contacted by Lusa, risks make flights unviable as early as Monday because there are no tickets on sale. In 2020, domestic flights in Cabo Verde, operated only by TICV, handled around 125,000 passengers, down 286,000 (-230%) on the previous year, due to restrictions imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic. At the end of April, when the unavailability of tickets for sale for May was known, Prime Minister Ulisses Correia e Silva recognised the difficult situation that the company is going through but said that the government would not allow any problems with internal flights. "Domestic flights are fundamental for the domestic market and the circulation and mobility of people, so the company has to ensure the flights," said the prime minister. In a statement released on 27 April, the Association of Travel Agencies and Tourism (AAVT) of Cabo Verde expressed concern over the unavailability of domestic flights from 16 May and asked the government to intervene. The business association - which was contacted by Lusa on Thursday and asked to give its position later - said that this was a serious situation and jeopardised the stability and planning capacity of domestic travel and tourism agencies and the planning of international operators themselves. "Especially concerning emigrant passengers and tourists who want to visit different parts of the country and that, because of this lack of definition in the programming of inter-island flights, will certainly have to postpone their trips to Cabo Verde," he said. The note signed by the president, Mário Sanches, said that this lack of definition comes when the country needs flights and passengers to circulate to and from the islands "as bread for the mouth." PVJ/IMYN // VM Lusa Agency : LUSA Date : 2021-05-14 10:32:00
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