Binter Cabo Verde will be registered as an African airline tomorrow. Even though they do not have an AOC yet, they are expecting to get it granted by the Authorities of Cape Verde soon. ElMundo published the information yesterday: Binter Cabo Verde will have two planes to fly from the African archipelago. They will have a staff of 60 Cabo Verdean employees. However, the new company will be integrated in the Spanish brand Binter.
The Spanish airline currently has 16 regional aircrafts ATR 72-500 and two CRJs. The latter two will be the ones that Binter Cabo Verde will use. Then, at the end of 2015, two brand new ATR 72-600 are expected to replace the CRJs. Binter Canarias expects to renew its fleet with 12 new air planes. They signed a contract with ATR to acquire them for 150 million Euros.
Binter’s expansion in Africa began in 2012 when they started operations from the Canary Islands to Cape Verde and Gambia. At that time they were already flying to Morocco. Afterwards, they opened routes to Senegal and Mauritania. However, the load factor has always been poor, barely 50%. The expectation is to overcome 60% this year thanks to the new project. In the future, as soon as the new routes are consolidated, Binter aims to open new destinations such as Mali and Ghana. Binter’s target is to create a European hub at Gran Canaria Airport.
Gran Canaria Airport unifies inter island and domestic arrival traffic
Precisely, yesterday Aena launched a press release informing that Gran Canaria airport is unifying the arrivals for inter island and the rest of domestic flights as from today. Hence, all passengers coming from another Canary Island or any other Spanish airport will arrive at gate 1. The purpose of this change is to make connections easier for those passengers. Access to public transportation and car parking will be easier as well. Gate 2 for arrivals will be totally dedicated to international traffic. Departure traffic will remain the same before the security controls. However, as soon as the passengers go through the filters, most of the boardings will be performed in the northern area of the Terminal.
Gran Canaria airport terminal capacity parameters were updated one year ago. However, a dedicated parameter remains for the inter island arrival passengers. Nevertheless, the main terminal constraint is for departures, which keep the same configuration after the new changes.
Photo: Binter Canarias ATR 72-500 EC-KGJ landing in Funchal by Aero Icarus – Flickr
I am looking forward to using the Binter Cabo Verde inter island service having already experienced traveling from Sal Island to Gran Canaria with Binter who provided a great service. BLOG: http://expatscapeverde.com/my-blog/trip-to-gran-canaria-via-binter-canarias-march-2015-part-1