Spanish airline Binter yesterday agreed to sell 70% of Transportes Interilhas de Cabo Verde (TICV) to Angola’s BestFly World Wide, leaving the remaining 30% with the Cape Verdean government.
Entrepreneur Nuno Pereira, sole shareholder of BestFly Word Wide, told Lusa news agency that the deal was closed yesterday with the Spanish group in the Canary Islands, involving the purchase of the company TICV and its brand, including the workers, enabling the continuity of the operation in the archipelago.
“As of today, Binter ceased to exist in Cape Verde as an air operator. I believe in this operation in Cape Verde and I already had the objective of having an AOC [Air Operator Certificate] in Cape Verde, so I took advantage of the opportunity. In the very short term, TICV, whose management is my company’s from now on, will take over the operation in Cape Verde”, explained Nuno Pereira.
Binter Cabo Verde was created in 2014 as a 100% Cape Verdean company, whose sole shareholder was Apoyo Y Logistica Industrial Canaria, Sociedade Limitada, and was transformed into the current TICV in 2019, the year in which it marked a million passengers transported between the Cape Verdean islands.
Up to May this year, TICV was the only company that made connections between the islands of the archipelago, after the departure of the public airline TACV, in August 2017.
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However, last May, after a dispute with Cape Verdean authorities, namely over support for the company due to the covid-19 pandemic, TICV, led by Binter, stopped selling tickets for the second half of the year and since May 16, does not carry out commercial flights.
On May 17, BestFly Angola (not to be mistaken with BestFly World Wide) assumed the emergency concession of inter-island air transport for six months, as decided by the Government, given the prospect of no flights.
Nuno Pereira is the General Director of BestFly Angola and one of its shareholders, but explained to Lusa that the purchase of 70% of TICV’s share capital was made only through BestFly World Wide, a company in which he is the lone shareholder.
“This deal was a bet of mine and then we’ll decide if we keep this brand, as TICV, or if we will change it. But this will be the operator that takes over the flights in Cape Verde”, he stressed.
In 2020, domestic flights in Cape Verde, operated only by TICV, handled around 125,000 passengers, 286,000 less (-230%) compared to the previous year, due to restrictions imposed by the covid-19 pandemic.
