SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, Nov. 11 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The president of Ashotel, Jorge Marichal, has denounced the “terrible” image that the Tenerife South Airport is offering as a result of the queues to take a taxi and has proposed that there be no restrictions on taxi licenses in this infrastructure and that vehicles not from the municipality of Granadilla de Abona may also cover the departure service.
In an opinion article, Jorge Marichal has indicated that the history of the Tenerife South Airport “is beginning to be quite tiresome” because “when it seems that the project for a new terminal is underway, we face several organizational deficits, from the control of passports for non-EU citizens, especially for those coming from the United Kingdom, our main source market, to the long lines to take a taxi.
Marichal has pointed out that this week they have publicly demanded “an urgent solution to the operational chaos that occurs at certain times in an infrastructure of insular and regional interest”, and precisely for this reason they have said from Ashotel that the islands’ airports “must be really a sensitive area, just like ports, not just on paper.
The president of Ashotel believes that there should be no restrictions on taxi licenses in this infrastructure and that if a vehicle that is not from Granadilla wishes to cover an exit service from the Airport to another point on the island, it can do so without that specific reservation for the passengers. taxis from the municipality where Tenerife Sur is located, “as if it were a privilege.” In this regard, he recalls that this infrastructure “is paid for with taxes from all Spaniards, not just those who reside in Granadilla.”
This declaration of a sensitive area, according to the president of the employers’ association, “has not translated, in any way, into solutions to the queues suffered by tourists and residents and, in general, users of the Tenerife South Airport” and he recalls that in summer, Furthermore, “there is a high percentage of elderly tourists who, after four or five hours on a plane, must wait the same for a taxi, after first passing the passport queue.”
Jorge Marichal maintains that the fact that taxis that are not from Granadilla leave clients at the airport and return empty or vice versa, that they pick up passengers at the airport, leave them at their hotels and cannot pick up clients again in This point “goes precisely against what Europe advocates for the decarbonization of the transport sector.”
In his opinion, “being more efficient and only carrying passengers on only one of the two possible routes is a contradiction, not only because of the pollution it generates, but because it forces two taxis to circulate when one would be enough.”
In that sense, from Ashotel, in addition to denouncing the situation, they want to contribute to solving it with a set of “clear and measurable” indicators that activate the entry permit for taxis from other tourist areas of Tenerife.
Although they believe in the self-regulation capacity of the sector to establish these indicators, the employers propose, first of all, the establishment of a figure that acts as coordinator of the flow of taxis at the Airport; a figure that receives or contrasts that information and who authorizes the entry of taxis when those requirements are met.
In this way, Ashotel proposes, the entry of taxis from other tourist municipalities on the island will be allowed, which will wait in an area set up for this purpose at the Airport, when the number of people waiting in line at the Tenerife South taxi rank is greater than 30. Likewise, they propose that they can operate in the time slots with the highest concentration of flights on the busiest days; on the days of greatest flight arrivals; or when the number of operating licenses in Granadilla (due to sick leave, vacations, etc.) of their holders falls below the x number.
“Tenerife South and any other airport in the Canary Islands cannot continue to give this terrible image as the main gateway, both for those who visit us and for our own residents. We deserve a 21st century facility in line with the destination we are,” says Marichal.
