Flying to and from Fuerteventura post COVID-19 crisis

[Lorena]

Translated using google FuerteventuraHoy today.

This looks very good news for Fuerteventura.

The island president offers Fuerteventura as a space to apply this exceptional measure and measure its effectiveness

The president of the Cabildo of Fuerteventura, Blas Acosta, has registered this Friday a request to the central government to make it mandatory to have a free medical certificate of COVID-19 for tourism in Spain once the health crisis is over or that, failing that , the measure is applied at least in Fuerteventura.

Tour operators and companies would require a medical certificate from their clients that they are free of COVID-19 before boarding their flights.


Thus, the Cabildo requests that the Ministry of Health, with the support of the Ministry of Tourism and the Ministry of Development, consider this possibility as "an exceptional measure until an effective vaccine against this pandemic is available."

In the letter, the island president raises the possibility that Fuerteventura is considered an ideal space to apply this exceptional measure and measure its effectiveness.

Fuerteventura received in 2019 more than three million tourists, most of them from international sources from up to 19 different European markets.

The economic reality of the island, based on a large proportion of tourism, has been seriously affected by the crisis generated by COVID-19, which is why the Cabildo proposes to take measures "to come out stronger after this crisis and guarantee our Potential demand throughout Europe for the quality and safety of our tourist offer ”, explains the Island President and Tourism Minister of the Majorero Council in the communication.


Split of the State of emergency thread. Sam.

[Jason W]

Great idea in principal but can’t see how the moment you board the flight you are guaranteed free of COVID 19. Do you take the test the day before, the week before you fly? Or have to carry an antibody certificate?

[Sam]

Great idea in principal but can’t see how the moment you board the flight you are guaranteed free of COVID 19. Do you take the test the day before, the week before you fly? Or have to carry an antibody certificate?

Emirates is giving passengers rapid Coronavirus tests before flights that produce results in minutes (since yesterday??). Perhaps other airlines will follow the suit.

[Sam]

The Canary Islands asks the Government for controls with serological tests and PCR to those who visit the Canary Islands

More measures and more security after the de-escalation, that is what the Canary Islands are asking for from the State and this was transferred by the Minister of Public Works, Transport and Housing of the Canary Islands Government, Sebastián Franquis, to the area minister, José Luis Ábalos. Specifically, serological tests and PCR for all tourists arriving on the islands, both from Spain and Europe.

In effect, the regional executive demanded that the Government of Spain, in order to prepare for de-escalation in the sector, take into account the singularities of this Archipelago and establish sanitary controls with serological tests or PCR for passengers in their places of origin. , both in Spain and in Europe, and before boarding for the Islands. The counsellor also demanded that these sanitary controls also be extended to Canarian ports and airports for all those tourists who disembark on the islands when mobility and connectivity with the rest of the country recover.

"Today's sectoral conference has served to prepare for the de-escalation in mobility and transport throughout the country, although I have communicated to the minister that for the Canaries it is essential to bet on safe de-escalation and that is why I have proposed that there be controls on health security in our ports and airports to guarantee that what has been our shield against the pandemic, which is to live on islands, continues to be maintained with absolute security and to avoid future contagions from abroad, "said Franquis.

The Canarian counsellor assured the minister and his counterparts from the rest of the autonomous communities that the low numbers of contagion and lethality that the whole of the Canary Islands have compared to the rest of the continental territory, ratify the success of the isolation and restriction on mobility that the Canarian Government has applied from the beginning of the state of alarm to the insular territory. "For us it is essential that the Canary Islands be a safe destination in terms of health, so we are going to ask that thermal imaging cameras be installed in all Canarian ports and airports and that these controls also be extended to the places of origin of the flights or ships, doing serological tests, PCR or those deemed convenient, to all those who want to visit the Canary Islands, "added the counsellor.The Canary Islands Government already foresees that tourists who come to the islands and give a positive result in any of these tests or sanitary tests will submit to the established protocol, that is, that they will be subjected to a quarantine of 15 days or directly admitted to a hospital centre.

Franquis explained to the minister that it is essential to recover air connectivity with the rest of Spain and with Europe in the face of the recovery of the tourism sector, basic in the islands' economy. "With a large part of the Canary Islands GDP paralysed by the crisis caused by COVID-19, it is essential that all health protocols are complied with on future trips to the Canary Islands, so that those who visit us in the future have all the guarantees that they will not go to suffer, nor are they going to transmit, any kind of contagion in our Community, "said the Canarian councillor," those controls that guarantee our safety are our main asset when it comes to recovering the Canary Islands' main economic instrument, which is tourism. If we are able to transfer to the rest of the world that the Canary Islands is a safe destination,and that, therefore, it is possible to come to the Archipelago with total normality, that is going to be the best campaign that we can carry out for the recovery of the sector and the Canary economy. "

In this sense, Ábalos told regional advisers that the EU transport ministers will hold a meeting on May 13 to establish a protocol at European level that includes these specificities and defines the recommended tests to be applied to ship passengers and aircraft between member countries.

Sebastián Franquis also required the Government of Spain to create a unique and specific fund to support the recovery and reconstruction of the transport sector at the national level, a fund with special emphasis on the land transport sector and the reactivation of Canary Islands companies both public transport as discretionary that have been affected by mobility restrictions imposed by the health crisis and that are strategic within the productive fabric of the islands.

Finally, and in the public works sector, the Franquis adviser also conveyed to the minister the need for the suspension to be lifted, which currently weighs on the deadlines for tendering new work. "Public works are a key element for the economic recovery of the Canary Islands due to the amount of economy it generates together with job creation, both directly and indirectly," said Franquis, "that is why it is essential to be able to start up again and as soon as possible, all the administrative machinery that allows the tendering of various works for which we already have a defined budget item. "

Courtesy of NoticiasFuerteventura.

[Sam]

Binter continues to implement new measures to further increase health security and preventive hygiene protocols against COVID-19 on all its flights, allowing its passengers to carry out the procedures related to their trip with the maximum guarantees in the current situation, with confidence knowing that the airline ensures their safety and that of its employees.

Starting on April 29, the airline will implement the automatic seat assignment system on its flights between the islands at the time of booking. Thus, in addition to reinforcing compliance with maintaining the social distance between tourists, the boarding process will be carried out in a staggered manner and with more peace of mind for the company's customers and employees.

Tourists who have purchased a ticket before this date will be assigned a seat at check-in or on boarding, so that every passenger will know the seat in which they will fly when they board the plane.

Other new measures

In order to contribute more effectively to the fight against the virus, the airline has begun to distribute specific hydroalcoholic wipes against COVID-19 to all passengers when boarding the plane. It is also made available to passengers who may require them promptly during their flight or if they have to access the toilets.

Another measure in the new health security package is the inclusion in the cleaning routines of a new cycle at 6:30 am, in which the aircraft that will operate during the day will be disinfected again, thus reinforcing the cycle that is currently carried out every night when the devices stop flying until the next day.

Another new package of additional measures will be announced shortly to continue giving the maximum guarantee at all customer contact points during their experience with Binter.

Priority in health and hygiene safety

Since the start of the health crisis generated by COVID-19, Binter has reinforced all its protocols and procedures to guarantee the safety of passengers and company personnel, rigorously implementing all the guidelines set by the authorities and by the Agency. European Aviation Safety (EASA).

In addition, the airline has intensified the cleaning of the planes to ensure a thorough sanitation of the fleet, using new and more effective products tested according to the European Virucidal Efficiency Standard EN14476.

Binter has also provided its crews with the necessary skills, capabilities and equipment to ensure the safety of all passengers and their proper care.

Essential services

At the moment, Binter works to maintain connectivity between the Islands operating, with the maximum security guarantees, the 20 essential flights decreed by the Ministry of Transport for the Canary Islands.

This also guarantees the transport of medical personnel, passengers who must travel for medical reasons, and service professionals considered essential. Also the transfer of vitally important merchandise, such as clinical tests, Coronavirus detection tests, medications and other types of medical equipment, as well as blood with which to supply the islands' hospital centres.

The airline collaborates as much as possible with Canarian society in the fight against this pandemic with measures such as the manufacture of protective materials that were difficult to obtain or the delivery of blankets, pillows, games and chocolates to the authorities for their distribution in health and socio-health centres.

Repatriation flights have also been carried out with which to bring both the airline's clients and other citizens to the Canary Islands, who had been trapped in countries with which the operation of air connections was no longer allowed.

https://www.canarias3puntocero.info/2020...-covid-19/

[Sam]

The (Health) Department is open to do only selective tests to tourists arriving in the Canary Islands

The Ministry of Health is open to consider a control of tourists arriving in the Canary Islands based on selective coronary tests that would be carried out at the islands' airports on certain flights, groups or individuals selected with epidemiological criteria.

The President of the Canary Islands, Ángel Víctor Torres, has been insisting for weeks that the reopening of the islands to foreign tourism should always be done by demanding a Coronavirus test.

And he has remarked that if they cannot be done at origin, at the tourist's place of departure, because this involves legal difficulties, the Canary Government is willing to do them at destination, on the islands.

The Departments of Health, Transport and Tourism of the autonomous community have presented their proposal in detail this afternoon to the Ministry, in a meeting of which the Government of the Canary Islands indicates that it has ended with a starting understanding.

The central government, sources from the Ministry of Health have assured Efe, is open to consider conducting a COVID-19 test on tourists arriving in the Canary Islands, but never indiscriminately, but selectively, with surveillance criteria.

The Canarian Health Service and the Foreign Health Service would participate in the system, on which the technicians from both administrations will now work.

The two administrations want to reinforce some precautions already in force since the start of the State of Emergency, such as taking the temperature after landing (110,000 people have already gone through this control in two and a half months), by conducting epidemiological surveillance surveys, which in some cases they could lead to a test.

The sources consulted by Efe have insisted that not all tourists would pass the tests, but only those who are selected by health criteria, because they come from a specific area where there have been more cases or a rebound or because their flight or group gathers interesting epidemiological circumstances.

The Government of the Canary Islands expects that the cost of these tests will be distributed among administrations and it is already advancing that the autonomous community is willing to allocate its own funds to this measure "temporarily", until the health and tourist situation normalizes, the authorities have stated. sources.

Starting this Tuesday, technicians from the Public Health services of the Canary Islands Government and the Ministry and also from Foreign Health will start working on this starting point.

https://www.eldiariodecanarias.com/notic...n-canarias

[windermeregolfer]

Well today sees the start of not just flights from mainland Spain but INTERNATIONAL flights arriving with two Ryanair flights one from London Stanstead due this morning and one from Manchester due this evening, our neighbours will be on the Manchester flight.

[windermeregolfer]

First flight from UK has arrived Ryanair from London Stanstead- 

           

[Archer]

That's re-assuring news! I wonder how many on board (both in and out), as tickets prices looked quite high?

Thanks for the update. 

[OMR + MIN]

First flight from UK has arrived Ryanair from London Stanstead- 

The Fue Airport arrivals website shows nothing coming in from the UK today? Is it unreliable?