Jetrader - Autumn 2018 - 49

IMAGE COURTESY OF AIRBUS

grow and mature. How can we be a lowcost carrier offering extremely low fares
when all the rest of the stakeholders are
paying the highest fares in the world? It's
impossible. It's very difficult to grow any
type of business in that way by not giving
discounts or incentives for new traffic or
new generations of passengers.
At the same time, the governance and
the different administrations are charging fees for almost everything. Sometimes
they're ridiculous fees because they realize
the lack of other options. I'll give you a
very simple example: If you are traveling
from Lima to Madrid, on any flight, you
pay Lima Airport Partners $56 in taxes and
you pay $26 in taxes in Madrid. When you
compare the two infrastructures, clearly,
neither are the employees earning the same
salaries, nor is the investment at the same
level. This isn't a balanced situation and
it's not right. We need not only to allow
flexible fees and flexible fares to improve
traffic and the arrival of new operators
in the region, but we also need to review

the high level of fares and fees that are
currently in place.
This is a cost that is affecting the final
price that the passenger is paying, and we
have several examples like this. I could give
you a free ticket from here to Colombia, but
I have to pay $100 in fees. What is that?
That's $100 for a flight that is two hours
and 30 minutes. You have fares for carriers in the United States like JetBlue,
Spirit or others that are lower than this
for longer flights.
This is something that's not easy to
change in one day, but it must be reviewed
if the region wants to have more traffic,
more competition and more operators. And
more operators, as everybody knows, equals
more jobs.
Jetrader: It seems like Asia-Pacific
and the Middle East markets have been
receiving much of the industry's attention in recent years, but the Latin
American market is growing rapidly, as
well. Are there factors unique to Latin

America that have enabled its continued
industry growth?
EF: In this region, the disposable income
is increasing, which means that the people
are asking for more and better services.
Before, they might only have planned to
travel by bus. But now, they've found that
they can travel by airplane and visit the
Caribbean, for example. And the fares that
we are offering are coming within range
of the increasing population of people
25-35 years old. They are willing to travel,
and they are asking for more goods and
services. Also, internet penetration here is
not as high as Europe or other places, but it
is growing rapidly, and all these things -
along with the shared experiences of the
people who have traveled by plane before
and who tell their friends about their experiences flying in different countries and
that they paid a tenth less than they pay
in Perú - are appeals that the people are
looking for. They assume, as operators in
other countries are showing them, that it
can be feasible here, as well.
Jetrader * Autumn 2018 49
Jetrader - Autumn 2018

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