Beginning in March, TACV Cabo Verde Airlines could begin operating direct flights between Portugal capital Lisbon and Guinea Bissau capital Bissau. The first flight is scheduled to take place on March 23.

TACV’s marketing department, quoted by Portuguese news agency Lusa, says that the inaugural flight should take place on March 23, if negotiations with Guinea Bissau’s and Portugal’s civil aviation administrations go as planned.

TACV plans to operate the flight using a Boeing 737 or 757, with a 140 or 185 passenger capacity, depending on the aircraft. According to TACV, the direct Lisbon-Bissau flight could help resolve the problem of luggage that end up arriving late in Bissau after getting “stuck” on the flights operated between Lisbon and Sal, in Cape Verde, with connections to Bissau. These flights have registered “maximum occupancy.”

The operation of direct flights could also help reduce costs for TACV. “As a function of costs and the market’s reaction, TACV will try to reduce the price of the tickets and increase the number of flights available weekly,” affirmed TACV’s representative in Guinea Bissau, Euclides Marino Vieira.

Prior to the country’s civil war in the late 1990s, TACV operated a regular Bissau-Lisbon flight that made a stopover on the island of Sal, in Cape Verde.

Source: A Semana