Passenger seaplanes return to the Port due to business concerns. The company Surcar Airlines carried out this Thursday the first test flight between Santa Cruz de Tenerife and Las Palmas de Gran Canaria with an amphibious aircraft. The objective of the entity will be to unite both Canarian capitals from next autumn on trips of about 30 minutes. Faced with this possible new activity, the employers’ associations Asocelpa and Fedeport have expressed their concern and they fear that it will delay the operation of ships.
The Surcar Airlines flight represents the return of an activity that had been absent in Puerto de La Luz for 65 years. The last trip of these characteristics took place in 1957 from the hand of Aquila Airways, a company that regularly linked the Island with the British port of Southampton. But apart from these tests -already on Monday they did one between Santa Cruz de Tenerife and Santa Cruz de La Palma-, the commercial flights that were announced this Thursday, predictably for the month of October, still lack the relevant permits from the Port Authority and they are expected to be complex given the high traffic of ships that La Luz supports.
Hence the concern of businessmen. “Concern, a lot”, highlighted this Thursday the president of the Canarian Federation of Port Companies (Fedeport), José Juan Ramos. “We have a congested port with many daily operations and we don’t know how compatible these flights will be with the existing sectors,” he said. “We have consolidated traffic and the common interest must prevail over new projects,” he specified.
Among the passengers were Gustavo Matos and the vice president of the Cabildo de Tenerife, Enrique Arriaga
Ramos indicated that he has scheduled a meeting with Surcar Airlines for this Friday so that they can explain the project to them. “I am concerned if I am going to have to stop the loading and unloading activity, for example, during the takeoff and landing time, if the ships are going to continue operating at that time,” said the president of Fedeport. “I am concerned about the management of all this and that operations that are already consolidated may be further delayed by the entry of a new sector,” he stressed.
The capital’s port, one of the busiest in Spain, supports an average of 100 daily operations. The fact that an aircraft takes off and lands in one of its docks one or more times a day -the company has not yet defined the frequencies with which they will travel between Tenerife and Gran Canaria- will entail a security deployment to avoid any type of mishap . The company indicates that they have been preparing the project for several years and that they have a technical report commissioned to INTA -organization belonging to the Ministry of Defense- under the title of The use of passenger seaplanes in the ports of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and Santa Cruz de Tenerife. Safety and non-affectation to port traffic.
Ibarra acknowledges that it is a “quite complex” procedure that they are working with Tenerife
The Association of Shipping Agents and Stevedores of Ships of Las Palmas (Asocelpa) too expressed his concern about “the alteration” that “the start-up of an air service with seaplanes” will mean for port activity in the dock. They stressed that they “hope” that the competent administrations “ensure that it does not affect the users or the normal activity of the Port”, and, in addition, they hope that the flights “do not suppose an economic loss for the port operators”.
Asocelpa considered that the authorities, to whom they have formally addressed, must “raise the security bar” before the start-up of an activity “unrelated” to maritime traffic. Hence they trust that “all the details will be analyzed so that it does not harm normal port activity”. In addition, they specified that the measures that have to be taken “do not suppose an extra cost for those who carry out maritime activity.” They also stressed that it is “necessary” to carry out a “detailed” study so as “not to regret problems, insecurity or new generation of costs outside the users of the Port”.
“We want to show that this is compatible and safe,” says the president of Surcar
The president of the Port Authority of Las Palmas, Luis Ibarra, present at the time of the arrival of the aircraft at the Sports Pier this Thursday, He acknowledged that the one before them is a “quite complex” file and that they are working together with the Port Authority of Santa Cruz de Tenerife to “analyze all the small problems that may arise.” In fact, last January, when Surcar’s intention to start a regular line between the islands was made public, Ibarra pointed out that this task “is complicated, because Las Palmas is a port with great activity.”
“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,” he added as soon as the passengers disembarked at the Deportivo -among whom The president of the Parliament of the Canary Islands, Gustavo Matos, and the vice president of the Cabildo de Tenerife, Enrique Arriaga, attended. The company, that aspires to be able to move 15,000 people a year, has been carrying out procedures for several years involving maritime and air security, among others.
This first test landing reached the Sports Pier, after the aircraft passed near the OPCSA container terminal. Nevertheless, the company is pending to know where it will have its passenger terminal, something that will depend on the respective permits that the Port Authority must grant. Their intention is, as they expressed this Thursday, to unite the two capitals, from the chicharrera Plaza de España to the Santa Catalina park. The other option, the one used on this occasion, would also depend on the works of expansion of the dock for small vessels, to go from 1,000 to 2,000 berths.
Regular business in Canada and Denmark
The Surcar Airlines company hopes to replicate a transport business model that is already common in coastal cities in Canada or Denmark. In the first case, for 30 years, as stressed by the director of the entity, Gerardo Morales. In fact, the commander of this first test flight between Tenerife and Gran Canaria, Lasse Rungholm, is of Danish origin and works for Nordic Seaplanes. This is an airline that has been operating since 2016 between Copenhagen and Aarhus, both cities in the Nordic country, and which has also participated together with Canarian businessmen in the creation of Surcar. Precisely, this has been in charge of providing the amphibious aircraft that has been flying over the Archipelago since last Monday – when the first test trip between Tenerife and La Palma-. It is a Twin Otter DHC-6-300 model with built-in skids and has been registered since 1978. These have capacity for 16 passengers, not counting the crew, and the idea will be to be able to connect both Canarian capitals in about 30 minutes with the main incentive of not having to travel to the airports. In addition, the company announced this Thursday that they are considering applying it to the tourism sector as well. In fact, Nordic Seaplanes operates tourist experiences flying over the Danish capital. | av
