He PSOE fails in new attempt to torpedo airport declaration Tenerife South as a sensitive area, a measure defended by the Cabildo government team with the in order to put an end to the kilometer-long queues of passengers waiting for a taxi in the airport infrastructure, the second one that moves the most passengers in Canary Islands and the seventh in Spain.
After obtaining it in the Granadilla de Abona City Council, in which the socialists govern with the Popular Party, the PSOE could not obtain it in the other municipality on which the management of the Tenerife South airport taxis falls with the current regulation: San Miguel de Abona. There, unlike Granadilla, the PSOE is in the opposition.
The San Miguel PSOE presented a motion in favor of the municipality’s taxi, with which it intended that San Miguel join the regulation protocol proposed by Granadilla, as the “appropriate tool to solve waiting times at said airport.” The motion also included the rejection of the declaration of the so-called Reina Sofía airport as a sensitive area.
The contrary votes of Canarian Coalitionwhich governs with an absolute majority in San Miguel de Abona, were enough to overthrow a measure, contrary to the declaration of a sensitive area, which the nationalists defend in the Cabildo as the only way to end the long waits for transportation in the southern facility.
The declaration of a sensitive area would allow taxis from other municipalities to pick up passengers in Tenerife South at the times of greatest arrival and departure of flights and when more passengers accumulate waiting for a taxi or a bus. The fact that this measure has not been implemented means that only taxis from Granadilla and San Miguel de Abona, within whose municipal limits the airport is located, can pick up passengers.
While trying to block the declaration of a sensitive area, the Granada City Council has launched some actions to reinforce the taxi service. The team led by socialist Jennifer Miranda alleges that the main problem that these long waits create are traffic jams on the Southern Highway and blames the Tenerife Council.
In the institutional motion in which the Granadilla City Council rejected the declaration of a sensitive area at the end of last November, Miranda’s team approved an action protocol in cases in which the queue of passengers at the airport exceeds 20 minutes. In these circumstances, according to this protocol, the measure will be activated by which the Granadilla de Abona and San Miguel units that are not on guard within their municipalities will enter the premises. “Only if these units were insufficient, would taxi drivers from other municipalities be allowed to pick up tickets, as long as they have accessed the airport to drop off clients, an issue that will be controlled by the stop manager who carries out his duties at the airport.”
It is curious that CC and PP in the Cabildo, which govern in agreement, clearly defend that the Reina Sofía has to be a sensitive infrastructure, so the participation of taxis from other municipalities could be activated much more easily, but nevertheless Those same parties in Granadilla de Abona do not have the same opinion. Nationalists and popular people from Granadilla voted against what they defend in the insular Corporation. In San Miguel de Abona, the PP abstained.
The measures announced by the local government of Granadilla de Abona do not seem to have generated the desired effect, at least on the days with the highest flight movement. It must be remembered that this infrastructure moves more than 10 million people in a year. After its launch, the long lines of residents and tourists waiting for a taxi returned to the outskirts of the complex. It happened at least the night of last Friday, December 29, as appears in a video to which EL DÍA had access. The already known as queues of shame, which are giving such a bad image of the Island, were repeated again. There were also a few hours in which there were no traffic jams on the Southern Highway.
Tour operators corroborated that the lines of passengers desperate to get transportation have been repeated after the images released in November. They also criticized the disorganization of the airport taxi service led by the Granadilla associations, with the support of the City Council, and the fact that although the Granadilla protocol is applied, the lines are so long and the response time so limited that residents and Tourists who use this airport are forced to wait more than an hour to get a means of transportation.
