The Partido Popular has brought to Congress the demand for an incentive program that allows the Canary Islands to recover the levels of air connectivity that were there before the pandemic, and wants the central Government to clarify if it has planned specific actions in place to reactivate the island’s economy.
In a joint initiative, the four Canarian deputies of the PP, Guillermo Mariscal, Ana Zurita, Auxiliadora Pérez and Sebastián Ledesma, point out that the island's tourism sector has been destroyed after a long year of the pandemic, and demand that the State contribute to boosting recovery with concrete measures.
"Tourist spending in the Canary Islands in the first quarter of 2021 fell by 86% year-on-year", they highlight in the document, "it is necessary to rebuild the main economic engine of the archipelago, and for this, it is necessary to start by recovering air connectivity because without planes there are no tourists. If the more than forty airlines that operated with the islands before Covid, and those that do not do so today are taken into account, the routes have been cut by 64%, from 732 to 262," the registered document states.
The representatives of the Canarian Partido Popular in the Lower House also highlight that the Canary Islands already have a Flight Development Fund, activated by the Ministry of Tourism to try to minimize the impact of the pandemic, but they point out that this mechanism is insufficient to recover the ground lost due to the sudden stop that has brought the islands to zero tourism during the health emergency.
"To regain connectivity, a specific incentive plan is needed, tour operators and airlines have highlighted this, but it is necessary for the Government to get involved," they state. In the initiative, the PP warns that the islands are at risk of losing competitiveness if these incentives are not activated in the short term. “Turkey, Egypt and other competing countries are already doing it, and if something is not done in the Canary Islands, we will be at a huge disadvantage when operators start flying again.”
