The new air route that will link the Uruguayan town of Punta del Este with Santiago de Chile next summer sold 1.500 tickets on its first day of sales on Monday, said Holger Paulmann, executive director of Chilean airline Sky, at the presentation of this flight in Montevideo. The summer flights that this company will offer will begin on December 13 and end on March 11, 2018.
Starting this Monday and continuing through next Wednesday, these flights have a launch price of $41 plus boarding fees per leg for the "light" fare (a random seat with no baggage in the hold).
"This is a rate never seen before, and we believe we're going to stimulate the market quite a bit, so we're very happy. Even yesterday, on the first day, we sold 1.500 tickets, and that's ten full planes," Paulmann explained at the headquarters of the Uruguayan Ministry of Tourism.
Flights will be operated on Wednesdays and Sundays to both cities, and outside of this promotional rate, the base price of the ticket will cost about 60 dollars per leg.
"Last year, people traveled from Santiago to Punta del Este, but via Montevideo, now they'll have a direct flight," he said.
He added, as an example, that for Argentines, Santiago has become "the new Miami," since "many people" head there to shop, whether for clothing or electronics.
Meanwhile, Uruguayan Tourism Minister Liliam Kechichian noted that the introduction of this new route is good news because the Chilean market has performed "extraordinarily well" in terms of tourism this year.
“In the first seven months of the year, 35% more Chileans arrived in Uruguay,” Kechichian said, compared to the previous year.
Regarding this data, the deputy minister of the portfolio, Benjamín Liberoff, added that 21.000 Uruguayans have traveled to Chile so far this year and that the figure for the other way around is similar.
Kechichian said the Montevideo-Santiago de Chile flight is performing "very well," but that Chile expects more Uruguayans to travel to its territory.
He also pointed out that there is a feeling that SKY airline is well known in Santiago but not sufficiently so in Montevideo and that the Chilean Ministry of Tourism should surely promote its destination more in the Uruguayan capital.
"We have to try to ensure that the planes arrive full and depart full. There's still a lot to be done for Uruguayans going to Chile," Kechichian said.
Source: efe.com
