article from: Jorge Nunes

At a time when it comes to the 2nd Ministerial Conference of UN Turismo and Icao, an event that rather brings some protagonism to Angola (the city of Luanda hosts the event), the reality on the ground shows that transport remains one of the major obstacles to the development of the tourism sector in the country.

If we look closely, the transport most used by tourists to move inside Angola is inevitably the plane.

What do we have?

Angola has practically only one company operating links between the provinces, and all calls necessarily pass by Luanda. There are no direct connections between several provincial capitals. Anyone who wants to fly from Benguela to Moçâmedes has to pass by Luanda. This makes no sense. It is an ineffective model that besides getting the trip out, increases the time required, becoming, in practice, unfeasible for tourism and general mobility.
Yesterday, once again, the national airline, Taag, canceled the last time the flight to Moçâmedes. No notice, without justification. Tourists, entrepreneurs, civil servants and citizens with personal or professional commitments are forced to cancel meetings, events and obligations previously scheduled. This affects not only passengers, but the entire tourism sector chain:
Canceled housing, annulled scripts, rental vehicles and paid services that are unused.

All without any compensation. These situations are not punctual and have already become normal. Instability on interprovial flights, frequent delays and the total unpredictability of internal air operation endangers any attempt to develop national tourism in a consistent way. Tourist destinations are hostage to a company that, it seems, has no desire or ability to follow the dynamics of the sector.
This is why, urgently, there must be a real liberalization of the internal air market, because one cannot continue to talk about tourism growth in Angola without guaranteeing mobility between provinces.

Without reliable flights, no competition, no alternatives, there is no tourism that resist.

The approaching ministerial conference cannot be just a speech showcase. You need to generate international and especially concrete places.
It is time for the Ministry of Tourism and the Ministry of Transport to work together, with objectivity, to show that there is a serious concern to solve this structural issue.

The solution is to open the market and end with the Taag monopoly.
TAAG cannot continue to operate with this posture of absence of responsibility and lack of commitment to the country's own tourism development.