| Aerolineas Argentinas: new
rates policy for non-Argentinean residents
"A real shame for the Argentinean tourism
business" Wednesday, August 9, 2006 Once
again the airline is on the news and
then again, no good news are coming
out from the company (no strike this
time). From
today new regulations apply for domestic
airfare on both residents and non-residents
passengers.
We were expecting the new rates from some months ago but the airline couldn't
convince the Government before to allow this. Yes, believe it or not, there
are still prices regulations in this country and the Government has the final
word. The
rates for domestic flights increased
a 20% (applying 10% from August and
the other 10% to be effective from
September), which in our opinion is
very reasonable because the prices
were frozen for a long time, but that's
not the end of the story:
From August 9th there are also new rules and rates for non-residents of
Argentina and here's an explanation about this issue:
- The standard B economy unrestricted category is no longer unrestricted. It
is not available for non-residents UNLESS (and this is very interesting part)
they arrive to Argentina country by Aerolineas Argentinas. This is like saying "Hey,
if you don't buy the international airfare with us, you'll pay our earnings
for it anyway through our domestic flights!" and even though it has some other
restrictions (penalties for date changes / cancellation).
- The new economy unrestricted category for foreigners will be the Y, the
one used some years ago, and the business class will continue to be the J.
- The D business class promotional category will suffer the same restrictions
as for the B.
- Depending on how is your tour organized inside the country (flight legs),
the increment in the prices may vary from about 120% to about 190%, here is
an example:
--- Example for a classic tour to the Patagonia, the airfare Buenos Aires /
El Calafate / Ushuaia / Buenos Aires has increased about 170% for the non-residents
(believe it or not the cost for this is US $ 800 about the same as Buenos Aires
/ Miami / Buenos Aires).
Because of these huge changes, the new manager of the airline in Argentina
was asked about the new regulations for non-residents and the answer was clear: "We
need bigger incomes, and no matter what it takes" (source is confidential here). At
this point we want to be clear on a
couple of points:
1) Aerolineas Argentinas IS NOT AN ARGENTINEAN COMPANY, it
is Spanish.
2) Aerolineas Argentinas has no serious competition in the domestic market,
LAN Argentina started their operation in this country last year, and they will
fly to El Calafate from November (one of their new routes), but can't be considered
as competitor at this moment. There are also some small companies along the
country, nothing that might worry for a minute to the main airline.
That said, it is understandable that they can do and/or undo whatever they
want, like for example this new rules.
Of course this is a very serious crash for several tour operators since the
price difference is so high that in many cases they will loose a lot of money. President
Kirchner has supposedly authorized
a 20% increment only with no further
changes. Well, having a little look
at the new regulations that Aerolineas
Argentinas has established, it seems
that the Government's authorization
involves a big and dark package in
order to enlarge the airline pockets
quite a lot (might happen something
under the table?). One
thing that we must consider is that
never before in the history of the
airlines operating inside Argentina
there was any difference in regulations
and/or rates between Argentineans and
foreigners, and we think that such
a difference is unacceptable. So what
else to say? this is an embarrassing
situation for all of us who intend
to promote the tourism to this wonderful
country. On
the following link you can see a pdf
file containing the document (bulletin
# 13/06) that Aerolineas Argentinas
sent to all travel agents and tour
operators, with the new artifacts to
see and apply the new rates for non-residents
in the different selling platforms
(SABRE / AMADEUS / WORLDSPAN). |
