Juan Vicente Gómez International Airport has been inoperative for commercial flights for 10 years. There are only private flights, which has a major limitation if you want to encourage tourism with the full reopening of the Simón Bolívar and Francisco de Paula Santander international bridges and the inauguration of the binational Tienditas section
The reactivation of the Juan Vicente Gómez international airport is a pending debt for 2023. Although everything indicated that 2022 would be the year of its flourishing, it was not. Its track only receives private flights and some national authorities.
The airport has been inoperative for commercial flights for ten years. “For the year 2012, the port received 100% improvements from the national government in all the facilities, but despite the fact that this important investment was made, after months, commercial flights were suspended,” said William Gómez, former mayor and Border analyst.
Gómez specified that although the runway has not received commercial flights for 10 years, the facilities remain in good condition. “The track does require maintenance and weeding, while the perimeter area, the fences, are 70% deteriorated,” he pointed out.
With the start-up of the air port, he estimates that, in a first phase, 150 direct jobs could be generated (food sales, handicrafts, as well as the personnel required by the airlines that are activated). Around indirect jobs, it foresees about 300 (taxi lines, tourism agencies, hotels and other carriers).
“Over the months, the number could increase to 600 indirect jobs and more than 250 direct jobs,” continued the analyst on border issues, who indicated that the more airlines operate, the more commercial flights there will be, and the scenario could be much better.
And it is that talking about the total reopening of the border, scheduled for January 1, without the possibility of having the airport 100% active, is a point that reveals the threads that need to be adjusted so that the economy in the San Antonio – Ureña Axis be prosperous
“During my tenure as mayor, several requests and meetings were made in Caracas, in the Ministry of Transportation. There was even a meeting with then-minister Hipólito Abreu, who responded that at the San Antonio airport, on instructions from the National Executive, commercial flights could not be authorized again, due to State security issues and also alleging security issues. the new international airport regulations”, recalled Gómez.
In this sense, the former mayor emphasized the relevance of its reactivation in this phase of the total reopening of the border between Táchira and Norte de Santander, since it has a strategic location and facilitates the mobility of people and merchandise between the two nations and, what more importantly, the sources of work that it would generate.
He recalled that, currently, only private flights arrive at the airport of the Bolívar municipality, which has a major limitation if you want to encourage tourism with the full reopening of the Simón Bolívar and Francisco de Paula Santander international bridges and the inauguration of the section Binational Tienditas.
“The commercial part is still going to be slow until there is no growth in our national production and these products are competitive with the Colombian product, so that it has that appeal. At the moment, when the Colombians came, they would only get the same products that are in their country, ”he said.
As a climax, the former mayor asked the authorities to allow the arrival of interurban units at the San Antonio del Táchira passenger terminal, since they are only authorizing the arrival of suburban routes, which means a lock for the visitor or user.
With information from The nation
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