The vice president, Victoria López, warns of the “bad image” of the island and urges the Cabildo to look for solutions
SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, Nov. 9 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Hotel and Non-Hotel Association of Tenerife, La Palma, La Gomera and El Hierro, Ashotel, denounces the situation of “chaos” that has been experienced at the Tenerife South airport for months after ‘Brexit’ and the implementation of passport control to citizens from the United Kingdom, with “long lines” that join those of taking a taxi, something that “should not correspond” to a first-class infrastructure on the island and of national interest.
In fact, this airport is the seventh in the entire Aena network with 10.8 million passengers and 75,600 operations in 2022, according to data from the public entity itself.
The vice president of Ashotel, Victoria López, considers it “nonsense” that this bottleneck occurs in passport control for passengers who come from non-EU territory, such as the case of the United Kingdom, with a high volume of tourists arriving on the island. .
“This collapse is not an extraordinary one-off situation; when flights are scheduled and it is known sufficiently in advance when they will arrive, this information would allow for personnel reinforcements if necessary,” he explains in a note.
Added to this anomalous situation, once passport control has been passed, are the queues to catch a taxi at the airport stop for thousands of passengers.
“It also makes no sense that only taxis from Granadilla have the competition in a facility of island interest and that vehicles licensed by other municipalities, which travel to Tenerife South to drop off passengers, have to leave there empty, while hundreds of people They wait for transportation to reach their accommodation or residence points,” adds the vice president of Ashotel, who believes that this anomaly must be resolved as soon as possible.
The employers advocate for the declaration of a sensitive area for the main air and maritime transport infrastructures of the island, a circumstance that allows all taxi licenses that wish to do so to operate in them, without restrictions of any kind, without a reservation for the vehicles of a specific municipality, “as if it were a privilege, taking into account that these infrastructures are paid for with taxes from all Spaniards, not just those who reside in those municipalities.”
To find a solution to this problem, Ashotel will request meetings with the management of the Tenerife South airport, with the competent Police Station in the area and with the Granadilla de Abona taxi drivers association, with the aim of resolving a problem “that is not typical of a first-class European destination”.
Along these lines he insists that “the bad image that tourists, but also residents, get is regrettable.”
This circumstance also occurs at a time when tourism recovery is already very close to pre-pandemic figures, with an increase in connectivity this winter, the peak season par excellence in the Canary Islands.
“Our image and tourist future are at stake,” adds Victoria López, who also urges the Tenerife Cabildo to implement changes that will improve the situation, “out of responsibility and general interest.”
ACCUMULATED PROBLEMS
Tenerife South adds to these problems its years of history of trying to have the infrastructure that corresponds to a facility of the level of the destination that is Tenerife, the employers’ association highlights.
Thus, remember that in May 2022 Aena and the Tenerife Cabildo announced in a meeting with economic and social agents on the island the injection of 8 million euros for the remodeling of a terminal “which is practically the same as the one that was built originally in 1978 and does not respond to current needs or the volume of operations and passengers it receives annually.
For hoteliers, “Tenerife South is a highly profitable infrastructure, but punished in state budgets to date.”
