Entrepreneur Nuno Pereira, sole shareholder of BestFly Word Wide, told Lusa that the deal was closed 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 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 from now on, will take over the operation in Cape Verde", explained Nuno Pereira.
Binter Cabo Verde was created in 2014 as a 100 percent 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 indicated one million passengers transported between Cape Verdean islands.
Until 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.
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 16th does not carry out commercial flights.
The company BestFly Angola (company different from BestFly World Wide) assumed on May 17 the emergency concession, for six months, of inter-island air transport, by decision of the Government, given the prospect of lack of flights.
Nuno Pereira is the managing director of BestFly and one of its shareholders, but explained to Lusa that the purchase of 70 percent of the share capital of TICV was made only through BestFly World Wide, a company in which he is the only shareholder.
"This deal was my bet and then we are going to decide if we will keep this brand, as TICV, or if we change. But this will be the operator that will take over the flights in Cape Verde", he underlined.
In 2020, domestic flights in Cape Verde, operated only by TICV, handled around 125 thousand passengers, 286,000 less (-230 percent) compared to the previous year, due to restrictions imposed by the covid-19 pandemic.
