Passenger seaplanes return to Puerto de La Luz 65 years later. The Sports Pier of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria hosted this Thursday the first test splashdown of this means of transport, which aims to connect the two Canarian capitals in 30 minutes. The company Surcar Airlines carried out a test flight from Tenerife to Gran Canaria in which both the president of the Parliament of the Canary Islands, Gustavo Matos, and the vice president of the Tenerife Cabildo, Enrique Arriaga, were traveling. As the entity advanced, the idea will be to make trips on a regular basis starting next fall.
Already last Monday the company made its first test flight in the Canary Islands from Tenerife to La Palma. However, “this was the important trip,” stressed Miguel Ángel González Suárez, spokesman for Surcar. The last time that a commercial amphibious aircraft landed in the port of the capital of Gran Canaria – apart from those that have been used in the fight against large fires – was in 1957 by the company Aquila Airways. The British entity then connected with a weekly flight Southampton, Lisbon, Funchal and Las Palmas de Gran Canaria with a Short Solent double-decker four-engine.
“We want to show that this is compatible and safe,” said the director of Surcar Airlines, Gerardo Morales, “and if we are welcome we plan to start operating in October”. The flights have a capacity for 16 passengers, not counting the crew, and will be focused on a business traveler, although they plan to open it to inter-island tourism as well. They thus aspire to move 15,000 people a year. In principle, the idea will be to connect both capitals, although the definitive place where the traveler service points will be located has not yet been decided. These will have the corresponding controls and security procedures similar to those of ports and airports, although on a smaller scale.
This first test flight reached the dock for smaller vessels in Puerto de La Luz, although the intention of Surcar Airlines will be to unite the chicharrera capital with the Santa Catalina park. In this sense, the final decision will be made by the Port Authority of Las Palmas based on the viability of this being possible. Its president, Luis Ibarra, who attended the reception ceremony for the aircraft, told the media that they are working “jointly” with the Port Authority of Santa Cruz de Tenerife to “analyze all the small problems that may arise in this file, which It’s quite complex.” He also specified that “we are all interested in improving connectivity between islands.”
