Costes de la insularidad

May 12 2016 (19:28 WEST)

It is a fact that we Canarians are being victims of a constant drain by the inter-island transport oligopolies. This is the daily reality of those who depend on a plane to carry out their work and even for their own mobility between islands for leisure reasons.

What happened to Don Adán Martín's idea of connecting the 8 Canary Islands to be able to go from the island of El Hierro to La Graciosa in a single day...? Well, among other things, and as an example, the North-South axis of the island of Fuerteventura is not yet finished, and not to mention the rest of the infrastructures that have not even been started in many other of our islands.

The latest population study says that since the crisis began, which continues to this day, no matter what they say, mobility motivated by the labor market towards the islands with the highest per capita income (Fuerteventura and Lanzarote) has grown exponentially in recent years. We are all perfectly aware that the salaries that emanate from the services sector and the group of teachers are not very large.

Through a small effort of imagination, let's put ourselves in the place of a worker with family residence in Gran Canaria and with his work on the island of Lanzarote, or vice versa. A father/mother who has to leave his home, his children and his partner to earn a living with his work and be able to maintain the fixed expenses of the family,...(let's continue imagining). Let's say that worker has a salary of around 1,000 euros. The price of a ticket from Lanzarote to Gran Canaria is 90'39 euros, (without forgetting that the ticket is subsidized by 50%), approximately it represents 10% of the salary yes or yes every time that mother or that father wants to see their children and their family. Let's add, in the case of having a car, the almost 30 euros it costs to leave a car at the airport for the weekend..., in short, a real nonsense, it is the very perversion of the bad capitalist system implanted in as many sectors as you can imagine.

Let's continue imagining, another common case. A married couple in which both work and decide to take a break planning a weekend trip alone and without the children, who stay with the grandparents. In the process of searching for a destination, they plan it together in front of a computer with the aim of spending it in El Hierro, thus getting to know the island and why not, contributing to the economic development of our land, renting a rural house at a very good price, renting a car to see the island, eating a rich stew with potatoes, having coffee in a picturesque place and even buying a bottle of water in any of its stores and those beautiful 'chácaras' that they saw in El Pinar.

Our joy in a well. There is no direct flight to El Hierro, the places were sold, but I do have the return for 106 euros two people... Now the outward journey I have to do it in the following way: Lanzarote-Tenerife Norte-El Hierro, for 172 euros that added to the 106 euros of the return, add up to nothing more than 284 euros (only in the ticket).

We contemplate illusory the option of boat, but only to arrive by boat from Lanzarote to Gran Canaria are 10 hours 30 minutes, and from there to Tenerife, and from there to El Hierro, with what in our destination we would be scarce hours after 4 transfers of round trip and 4 of return. Logically, unthinkable. And also above the cost of another destination more comfortable to access outside the Canary Islands.

Faced with that reality (284 euros), I am ready to look for a destination which is cheaper and more attractive..., we think of Madrid, and the most curious thing is that the round trip is without transfers and for only 109 euros. We save 175 euros only on the ticket and we will rent a vacation apartment in Madrid that costs us the same as the rural house we saw in El Hierro, we will rent a car for 5 euros less each day, we will eat a good Madrid stew, we will have coffee sitting on the Castellana to enjoy the extraordinary landscape of Madrid de los Austrias, we will buy a bottle of water in a Chinese and my wife will buy those beautiful earrings that we saw in the Rastro de Madrid that is celebrated on Sundays.

To leave aside the suspicions and misunderstandings, the prices that appear in these calculations are taken from the internet on the same day and at the same time and with the same margin of anticipation in the purchase of the destinations.

Let's stop imagining now, let's put our feet on the ground and react.

With reasonable rates, the result of logical business ambition and far from the greed that seems to prevail, it could be achieved that the economy of all the islands grew in such a way that the redistribution of tourist wealth would be a palpable reality.

Why not be ambitious and get what happens between Manhattan and Staten Island, a ferry that connects them completely free and where they do not ask you for the resident card... Thinking that here is a chimera more than a utopia, but having those who visit us the same rates that we Canarians have and with the downward adjustment that is proposed, would consolidate the Canary Islands as a destination that has from a desert with dunes and wild donkeys to dense forests of Laurisilva only existing in Macaronesia; and those foreigners would buy that bottle of water, would eat that stew with potatoes or that old woman on their backs and would take those beautiful 'chácaras' that we saw in El Pinar. An objective this, presented by Coalición Canaria and approved in Parliament by which the entire political class that defends the Canarian must and have to take part to structure this pressing need in an authentic citizen demand.

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