ANA announced at the start of this week that the first plane, an Airbus A340-300, from Havana, Cuba, was scheduled to arrive at Beja on Wednesday, and the second one, an Airbus A340-500, from Helsinki, Finland, is expected next Wednesday, 13 January.
“We hope this wager by Hi Fly in Beja is the first step towards a partnership to develop other activities at the airport,” ANA said.
Hi Fly chairman, Paulo Mirpuri, said in a statement that the agreement with ANA to use Beja airport “as a hub for the fleet between contracts” namely for parking planes, was “quite positive”.
Beja airport, which uses an old air force base for civilian flights, cost €33 million and began operating in mid-2011, but is referred to as the region’s ‘White elephant’, with no flights or passengers most days.
Hi Fly is a private Portuguese airline that specialises in Wet Leasing – the supply of aircraft with crew, maintenance and insurance. The group which it is part of comprises 20 state-of-the-art airbus planes.
In May last year Hi Fly made headlines after it landed one of its aircraft, which it was operating under contract with Saudia Arabia’s national airline Saudia, in Israel – apparently a first in 70 years – prompting what one source described as a “political and diplomatic squall” and the reported termination of the contract.