This Monday, October 27, the extra charge for the transfer TUUA (Unified Rate for Airport Use) in the Jorge Chavez International Airport.
This is an extra amount that only passengers who make an international connection and have to get off the plane in Lima to connect with another flight will have to pay. Lima Airport Partners (LAP) detailed at the time that this fee is charged because these users used the facilities and this was not previously considered.
However, there have been months of dispute between LAP, the airlines and the Ministry of Transport and Communications (TCM) to define whether this will actually be charged or not. For now, LAP is clear that from Monday, October 27, it will begin to be charged, but given the refusal of the airlines, this charge will not be included in the tickets. What’s more, the Association of International Air Transport Companies (AETAI) has once again insisted that this payment be suspended.
Carlos Gutiérrez, president of the Association of International Air Transport Companiesgave an interview to Exitosa on the topic of the transfer TUUA, which “will be applied as of October 27 for international passengers who make a connection or transfer.”
“A passenger coming from Santiago, via Lima, to Miami, is going to start paying a little more than US$12 on the way up and the same on the way down. Almost US$25 to make his complete trip. And starting in January of next year, a similar concept would be applying, the National Transfer TUUA, for passengers who also make flights within the country, but with a stopover in Lima,” he clarified.
In the case of the transfer TUUA For domestic flights, “a little less than US$8 will be charged on the way up and the same amount on the way down.” “The TUA, in principle, goes to the airport, of which. Of that total amount of those US$ 25, in the case of the International Transfer TUA, 46.51% goes to the State, almost half,” said Gutierrez.
But why does AETAI ask that the TUUA be eliminated? “This charge is a new charge that was never contemplated from the origin of the concession, neither in the technical proposal that the concessionaire presented to win the Jorge Chávez administration, nor later in the concession contract, but was granted in 2013,” he explains.
It is about the addendum number 6an addition that has already been approved and granted. “We opposed it from that moment, years ago, but well… Specifically, the airport has this right granted with addendum 6. What we have proposed to the Ministry of Transportation, since today it is in the process of negotiating a new addendum, consists of eliminating the TUA for national and international transfers, with the airport being compensated if applicable,” AETAI points out.
As is known, according to AETAI, “to date we already have three route suspension announcements. In the case of Sky for Cancun, Latam to Havana and Orlando. (…) When one develops a route network, what one seeks is to maximize precisely that network to sustain flights, which may have to secondary cities.”
“If that flow of passengers says ‘hey, we are a family of four who are going to go through Lima and starting Monday we are going to have to pay a little more than a hundred dollars’, versus if I have the alternative of going through Bogotá or Panama, which does not apply that charge, The economic decision is very simple. I’m simply going to other destinations”, he points out.
Thus, AETAI suggests that the Jorge Chávez airport would lose competitiveness compared to others, while LAP seeks to include this charge in the same ticket, like the normal TUUA, that the airlines offer, which would imply two things: that the airlines increase the tickets and pass the price on to consumers, or that they assume this cost and earn less.
