Argentina Aviation Adventure 2006
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Buenos Aires Basics
Travelers are advised to take the Manuel Tienda Leon bus service that operates every thirty minutes between Ezeiza and their central Buenos Aires depot, where passengers connect to smaller coaches for transport to one’s hotel. On arrival, it is best to avoid the taxis due to pricing and possible security issues, although radio taxis are perfectly safe and recommended for easy and affordable travel within central Buenos Aires. To find a good hotel or apartment in Buenos Aires, www.ByTArgentina.com is an excellent local tourist agency that is well recommended, and their website contains lots of useful information on tours, sightseeing, hotels, and apartment rentals. They can even rent you a cell phone.
Fellow aviation enthusiasts are advised to stay in Central Buenos Aires. We stayed at the very centrally located Castelar Hotel at Avenida de Mayo and Lima, one black from the main Avenida 9 de Julio, the widest boulevard in the world. Built in 1928, this once grand hotel is in need of updating, but the rooms are air-conditioned, and the $50 USD room rate is not unreasonable. Request a room on the upper floors (seven through nine) facing the street, as these are the best rooms in the hotel, with nice views of the city. From central Buenos Aires it is only a short taxi ride to the domestic, downtown Aeroparque Jorge Newberry, which is the busiest airport in all of Argentina.
Domestic Turmoil
First of all, visitors should understand the great hardships the domestic airline industry has weathered over the past few years. In the midst of Argentina’s economic upheaval in 2003, Aerolineas Argentinas’ two largest domestic competitors LAPA and Dinar both failed. This left only Southern Winds to compete with Aerolineas, and without a new carrier entering the domestic market, Aerolineas was poised to increase its already large 85% market share. Last February, Southern Winds was rocked with a drug smuggling scandal when Madrid police seized four unaccompanied suitcases containing cocaine on a Southern Winds flight from Buenos Aires.
The Argentine Government had plans to create a government-owned domestic airline called LAFSA to compete with Aerolineas Argentinas, in the wake of all the airline failures. This paper airline was devised to address the public’s fears of Aerolineas developing a domestic monopoly. As a form of unemployment insurance and to assist the former staff of failed LAPA and Dinar, LAFSA employed all 850 of the unemployed airline employees, as well as staff from the failed Southern Winds, amounting to many millions of dollars in government hand-outs. Southern Winds was going to operate LAFSA flights on behalf of the government airline, but the Madrid drug scandal brought an end to the LAFSA scheme. Already in bankruptcy, Southern Winds’ state of affairs slid down hill from there, and the ailing airline operated its last flight on December 5, 2005. Their withdrawn from service aircraft only added to the growing collection of derelict airliners parked at the Aeroparque.
As a side note, one night during our visit, while taking a taxi from the Aeroparque back to central Buenos Aires (after an afternoon of photography), there was a terrific traffic jam into the Aeroparque on the opposite side of the road. A large group of former Southern Winds staff had started a protest, and had dumped a large pile of debris into the roadway, and set it alight creating a huge bonfire with smoke wallowing up into the early evening sky. Two-dozen riot police had encircled the group, allowing them to freely demonstrate, with people yelling into mega-phones and waving anti-government and anti-Southern Winds banners. They were protesting the government’s nixing LAFSA along with their jobs. Suffice it to say, anyone who did not allow sufficient time to get to the airport that night for their flight, would be missing their flights!
The economic hard times also effected the country’s smaller airlines. Other Argentine airlines that ceased operations over the past recent years include American Falcon (two 737s and an F28), Aerovip (half a dozen J31s), and most recently CATA (3 F-27s and a single FH227). Aeroparque-based CATA operated their F27 fleet on charters and regional services for some twenty years, and their whistling Dart engines were a regular treat at the Aeroparque. With very few F27s and FH227s left in worldwide passenger service, a call was placed to CATA’s offices in December to inquire about the possibility of booking a flight. The receptionist who answered the phone explained that the company ceased operations in the summer of 2005, and had been sold to a new owner, who was attempting to re-start operations sometime in 2006.
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