A new air connection between the Chilean city of Antofagasta and the U.S. city of Miami is set to benefit the country’s salmon farming industry.
Antofagasta is a major urban center and synonymous with Chile’s mining industry. But a new initiative will include 27 flights between Miami and its Andrès Sabella airport between 15 November and 31 December, the peak season for some of Chile’s most valuable fruit exports.
According to Economia y Negocios, the alternative looks to circumvent the logistical complications associated with the airport in Santiago, Chile’s capital. Santiago’s Arturo Merino Benítez International Airport is currently being remodeled in a process that started in 2016 and will not conclude until at least 2020.
“The airport in Santiago is overrun and the delays that it generates surpass 24 hours. In high season, that starts in November, this delay could be as much as 48 hours,” Claudio Cortés, the partner director of transport firm Cargo Master Chile, told El Mercurio.
While Antofagasta is located 1,300 kilometers north of Santiago, and even farther for salmon coming from the southern regions of Chile, the new route will provide a more efficient timeframe for exports, Cortés said.
“The complete logistical chain, from the dispatch of the fruit or the salmon from its processing plant, passing through all the current processes that we currently do in Santiago and its transport to Antofagasta, represents a saving of 12 to 15 hours [over] the operation we have [currently] through Santiago,” Cortés said.
The new route will offer savings in flight time as well. Cortés estimated that three hours on average will be saved flying to Miami and 24 hours in exports to Europe or China, which will allow for lower transport rates.
According to Oscar Martínez, general manager of SCL Air Cargo, the new route will “break a paradigm” that centralizes cargo shipments in Santiago, and may even attract producers from Argentina to consider it as a logistical option.
And for the country’s salmon farming sector, with transportation by land costing as much as 10 times less than air cargo, bringing product to Antofagasta should not be cost-prohibitive, Martínez said.
Marco Antonio Díaz, the regional governor of the Antofagasta Region, highlighted the new route as a public-private initiative that will benefit the northern part of the country and offer diversification from its traditional dependence on mining.
Photo courtesy of LatAm Cargo
