Singapore, Latin America open air links

OSA             CAAS            LOGISTICS

Singapore - Singapore and Peru have concluded a new open skies agreement (OSA) which will allow carriers from Singapore and the Latin American countries to operate passenger and cargo flights between the two countries.

The city-state last month also inked bilateral air services agreements (ASA) with Colombia and Ecuador over the last month. Together with the OSA, the agreements will enable carriers to tap on traffic from third countries to improve the viability of scheduled flights, making it easier to respond to any business opportunities that may arise particularly in trade and the tourism markets.

CAAS said the Singapore-Peru OSA is more liberal than conventional OSAs, in that it provides carriers unlimited "hubbing" rights for cargo operations. "Singapore carriers may utilise these rights to base their aircraft in any point in Peru and use the point as a hub for cargo operations to third countries, without any restriction on destination, frequency or capacity. The same applies to Peru carriers with respect to Singapore," the company said in a statement.

With the Singapore-Colombia ASA carriers of each country are allowed to operate up to eight passenger flights and eight cargo flights weekly. This number is expected to increase to 14 weekly flights each by January 2011. The ASA also included an open skies arrangement for cargo operations, with "hubbing" rights.

"World Trade Organisation figures show that between 2005 and 2008, trade between Latin America and Singapore grew at an average of 30% per annum, almost twice the average growth rate of Singapore's global trade of 16.3% in the same period," said Yap Ong Heng, director-general of the CAAS.

"With growing trade, business and tourism flows between Singapore, and the rest of Asia, and Latin America, it is important that such air services frameworks are established ahead of market demand."

There are currently no direct scheduled flights between Singapore and Latin America. Singapore has OSAs with close to 40 countries, including the new OSA with Peru.

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