Transport crisis:Bestfly suspends interisland flights in Cape Verde, with no return forecast

“ There are no tickets ” for any island and “ it is not known ” when there will be again, is the advice given to those trying to book a flight over the counter at the international airport in the capital, Praia, adding that the last trips were made on Saturday.

The information comes after several months of flight constraints, with cancellations and delays, due to a lack of planes.

According to the same source, at the end of February, given the population's problems and complaints, the state-owned company Transportes Aéreos de Cabo Verde (TACV), dedicated to international flights, rented planes from Air Senegal and began operating between the islands.

At the time, entry into the domestic market was announced as “ complementary ” to Bestfly, but now it ends up being the only domestic operation in the archipelago through which it is possible to buy tickets on the Internet.

For its part, on the Internet portal for Cape Verde, the Angolan company Bestfly stopped publishing flight schedules, with a warning: “We are rescheduling our flights, taking into account the entry into line of our planes, which are undergoing maintenance .”

The company says it is also adjusting “slots” according to “ the opening of Praia and Sal airports, due to works ”.

Candorme still in Lusa, TACV has already announced, however, an increase in operations to serve the annual festivals on the island of Fogo, at the end of April.

Lusa has tried to obtain further clarification from Bestfly and the Cape Verdean authorities, but without response.

On February 26, the day before TACV entered inter-island flights, the Angolan company Bestfly lamented, in a statement, " the challenges that the operation of TICV [Transportes Interilhas de Cabo Verde, official name] has faced ".

At the time, he said that there was a forecast of " stabilizing operations by mid-June ", without further details.

At the same time, the Minister of Tourism and Transport, Carlos Santos, recognized the " bumps " that have occurred in inter-island [air] transport, justifying it with the " growing " tourist demand, but also due to the "weak capacity" of Bestfly.

" We noticed that there is this mismatch between supply and demand, which is why the Government has already given the green light to a proposal to increase the supply of inter-island flights presented by TACV, to allow greater availability for all islands and facilitate connectivity " , said the governor to this newspaper's source.