It was a specific problem at the end of the last century that became common about three decades ago. The continuous waits of numerous tourists arriving at Tenerife South Airport prompted the declaration of Reina Sofía and Tenerife North, plus the ports of Santa Cruz and Los Cristianos, as sensitive areas. Its Regulations were even published, but they were not definitively approved. Queues today are a more serious problem.
Public transportation is one of the pending issues at the Airport Tenerife South. A problem that is observed on the days of greatest air traffic, Tuesdays and Fridays between the last years of the last century and the first of this one, but that worsens with the increase in the market and the arrival of tourists, today in record numbers. The wait to take a taxi outside the Terminal is the first obstacle that visitors now encounter when arriving in Tenerife. A destination that works to be of quality and preference, but that does not finish providing itself with infrastructure (the new terminal and/or the second runway seem like an endless story) and services to achieve that goal.
A meeting is called at five in the afternoon on Wednesday to unblock one of the solutions. In the Insular Palace the Council, the Granadilla de Abona City Council, the taxi drivers of this municipality and San Miguel de Abona (Tenerife South Airport occupies land in both) and the Taxis Federation (Fedetax). They will address the solution based on the proposal that emerged at the meeting that the sector and the mayor of Granada, Jennifer Miranda, held this week.
In summary, it consists of taxi drivers from Arona and Adeje who go to the airport making the return trip with a ticket, only at times of saturation. To do this, taxi drivers try to agree on a protocol that regulates this operation, in which the stop manager appears as the figure of control and surveillance of the activity. This role required police presence when a quarter of a century ago the use of the transfer was authorized, authorizing taxi drivers from other municipalities to operate at the Tenerife South Airport.
The conflict led to an attempt to declare this site, as well as the Tenerife North Airport and the ports of Santa Cruz and Los Cristianos, a sensitive area. The Regulation necessary to develop this measure did not go beyond its public presentation in 2012 (BOP of October 24). Its sole transitional provision establishes that said regulation “will be suspended until the planned telematics platform is implemented”, as it is an essential mechanism for its application. Currently, that resource does not exist.
Rosa Davila, president of the Cabildo, is categorical in her intention to establish the sensitive area, because a “critical infrastructure (…) cannot be hijacked by anyone or by any municipality.” Words that Jennfier Miranda, the mayor of Granada, refutes and places the problem in the lack of real solutions to the traffic saturation on the Southern Highway (TF-1), a fact that prolongs the round trip journeys of airport taxis to the tourist area. A thesis in which she has the support of the sector, which also rejects the declaration of a sensitive area.
Currently, tourists who want to use a taxi from Tenerife South Airport wait between 10 and 30 minutes on average. The queues on the highway mean that the taxi journey requires more than 40 minutes each way. About 200 taxis operate at the Reina Sofía stop, 191 of them from Granadilla de Abona.
