Secretary of State for Portuguese Communities Paulo Cafofo on Saturday welcomed TAP’s recent resumption of air operations to Venezuela, but stressed that direct flights to Funchal are in short supply and more companies are flying.
“There is another very important issue that is always talked about, which is the air connection, because it is also a way to get to our homeland, and therefore I am very happy to see that TAP has started traveling and has a route. back here to Caracas, to Venezuela,” the SEC began explaining.
Paulo Cafofo spoke in Caracas, at the ambassador’s residence, during a reception for the local Portuguese community as part of an eight-day visit to Venezuela that ends on Tuesday.
“This does not satisfy us, because we want that, despite the efforts made, and as we know, the government and the previous ambassador (Carlos de Sousa Amaro) were very interested in making this possible, and TAP managed to fly again to Venezuela. But we want more, we want more flights, we want these flights to meet our needs,” he said, commenting on his own experience of this trip.
“The plane arrived fully loaded and that’s why we want more frequencies, because more frequencies also means more opportunities for people to travel and at more affordable prices,” he explained, emphasizing that “other operations from ‘other travel companies’ are ‘welcome’. “…as is the case with EuroAtlantic, which has “already approved ‘slots’ and possible trips to Funchal.”
“Obviously now EuroAtlantic has to initiate a commercial process,” he said, noting that “all the work done with great dedication and great will of several people made this permission by the National Institute of Civil Aviation, the Venezuelan authorities”, so that “the operation can be successful.”
