Ferry companies in Cozumel await the order to resume normal operations

QUINTANA ROO, (August 09, 2021).- The ferry companies that cover the Playa del Carmen-Cozumel route will not operate simultaneously until the proper authority, in this case, the Ministry of Communications and Transportation (SCT), orders them to do so.

This was settled in a meeting held on the island of Cozumel, where, in addition to local authorities and company representatives, Ana Laura López Bautista, general coordinator of Ports and Merchant Marine, and Rear Admiral Rafael Vaca, representative general director of Port Captaincies of the Ministry of Communications and Transportation (SCT), participated.

At that meeting, representatives of the Cozumel government finally had the opportunity to request the federal authority to intervene to definitively solve the problem of crowds on the docks that have become sources of contagion for Covid-19, a situation which has been made worse during the summer holidays.

However, in that meeting, held behind closed doors at the APIQROO facilities, the representatives of the Winjet and Ultramar ferry companies expressed their “willingness to return to their daily and simultaneous operations, but they need a competent authority to turn the instruction”.

According to the information, confirmed by the municipal authorities, Arturo Báez and Alejandro Gutiérrez Sánchez, general director of Winjet and Transcaribe, stated that while the issue of the federal order is resolved, both will have up to three boats at peak times. to meet the demand for transportation of people on the 18-kilometer route that the Cozumel canal has.

At that meeting, they also promised to respect the 80 percent capacity, as a maximum, which was agreed in a previous meeting, as well as the health protocols.

This is the first time that shipping companies have made a commitment before a federal authority to improve service and avoid crowds at the docks and inside the ships, which worsened at the beginning of the summer season.

The main pretext of the shipping companies is that the Navega dock in Playa del Carmen does not have the operational capacity to house two vessels simultaneously in view of the new sanitary protocols of maximum capacity allowed and regulated by the Federal Commission for the Protection against Sanitary Risks (COFEPRIS ).

Just last June, shipping companies mobilized a total of 239,707 people on that Cozumel-Playa del Carmen route , who every day had to make long lines, even without a healthy distance, due to the lack of enough boats.

Just a few days ago, the representative Carlos Hernández Blanco, president of the Tourism Commission of the State Congress, entered a point of agreement to urge the federal authorities to take action on the matter in order to solve the problem, not only the health risks but also the rates charged by ferry companies.

Source: Sipse