News
February 29, 2008
IFC’s Chairman views about the future of VLJ’s in Latin America
is covered by Kirby J. Harrison, a renowned aviation journalist
for Aviation
International News. The article covers in detail the outcomes
of the first VLJs in Latin America and Caribbean conference held
in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on December, 2007. The conference was
held by MIU Aviation Events and was the first of its kind in the
region. The second edition of the conference will take place on
November in 24-25 in Miami, Florida, please visit
www.MIUevents.com
.
According to Oscar García, chairman of InterFlight Consulting and
chairman for the MIU Events VLJ conference held in Rio de Janeiro
in December, the VLJ in Latin America will most probably fill a
niche between traditional on-demand charter and airline travel.
He explained that rising ticket prices and limited access at the
airlines and higher user costs for charter will open a market that
the VLJ is positioned to serve. He estimates that the airlines will sell approximately 100 million
seat trips over the next three years in Latin America, and two million
travelers will take advantage of private aircraft transport. These
numbers, he added, suggest a substantial market potential for fast,
reliable transport with the advantages of on-demand charter at prices
close to coach-class full-fare airline prices.
With the growth of a VLJ air-taxi industry in Europe, InterFlight
Consulting chairman Oscar García foresees “parallel operations by
air-taxi operations alongside regional carriers and access to the
public through the same reservation systems.”
While much of the VLJ conference discussions centered on challenges facing the VLJ market in Brazil, InterFlight chairman García noted that many of the problems in Brazil are similar to those in other Latin American countries. “If we can solve a problem in one country,” he said, “then we will have created the framework for a solution in all the other countries.
|
