Two new regulations regarding airport fees were recently issued in Argentina. On June 12 2015 the Organismo Regulador del Sistema Nacional de Aeropuertos (ORSNA) – a federal agency that controls and regulates the performance of the national airport system – published Regulation 73/2015, which provides as follows:

  • Passengers transferred via connections between domestic airports must pay only one airport fee at the airport of origin.
  • Passengers transferred from a domestic airport to an international destination must pay the international airport fee only at the domestic airport of origin.
  • Passengers transferred from an international airport in a foreign country to a regional or international airport between Buenos Aires and Uruguay or to an airport less than 300 kilometres (km) away or to a connection with a domestic airport are exempt from the airport fee. To this extent, Ezeiza International Airport and Aeroparque Jorge Newbery are considered to be one airport.
  • The regional airport fee must be paid only by passengers on regional flights, as long as they make no connections before or after 24 hours to any domestic or international flight. In that case, the passenger must pay the international airport fee at the airport of origin.
  • 'Regional flights' are defined as flights between Ezeiza International Airport or Aeroparque Jorge Newbery and Uruguay or international destinations of 300 km or less from those airports.

In order to apply the abovementioned regulations the following conditions must be met:

  • Each connection must be scheduled within 24 hours of the original flight's arrival.
  • The connection must have been scheduled in the same airport or between Ezeiza International Airport and Aeroparque Jorge Newbery.
  • The scheduled connections must not take place between flights within the same airport or between Ezeiza International Airport and Aeroparque Jorge Newbery or vice versa.
  • The scheduled connections must not have the same origin and destination (eg, Ezeiza International Airport and Aeroparque Jorge Newbery as origin and destination).
  • Connections must be shown on the same ticket.
  • The passenger must not have requested changes to the flight, schedule or itinerary which modify his or her previous conditions.
  • Airport fees must not have been collected directly by the airport operator at the time of boarding.
  • Exemptions to pay airport fees must be exclusively applied if the described conditions are complied with.

The regulation applies to any carrier, domestic or foreign.

On June 12 2015 the Agencia Nacional de Aviacion Civil published Regulation 445/2015. The regulation established the following amounts to be paid by passengers as a security fee:

  • $10 for international passengers;
  • $4.50 for regional passengers; and
  • Ps10 for domestic passengers.

Children up to three years of age on domestic flights and up to two years of age on international flights, as well as diplomatic personnel (ie, Argentine or foreign nationals who hold a diplomatic passport), are exempt from the fee. The exemption conditions under Regulation 445/2015 are the same as those for Regulation 73/2015.

Airlines, ORSNA, airport concessionaires and the Société Internationale de Télécommunications Aéronautiques are working on the implementation of the new regulations.

For further information on this topic please contact Elizabeth Mireya Freidenberg at Freidenberg Freidenberg & Lifsic by telephone (+54 11 4311 4991) or email ([email protected]).

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