Two new airlines, Air Horizont and León Air, are already facing serious financial challenges after beginning operations this 2015 summer season. The website O2B cites the root of the problem as being the lack of demand due to alternative forms of transportation, more specifically, high-speed trains. León Air has already had to discount its Burgos- Barcelona tickets due to a 30% drop in demand during its first month. Air Horizont, based in Zaragoza, had originally programmed flights this season to Munich, Rome, Barcelona and Alicante. However, according to O2B, owing to lack of demand the company has since said it, “…will only run charter flights, given that delays in permits ‘have rendered it economically unviable to run regular flights at this time’”.
Another website, SoydeZaragoza.es, puts more emphasis on the problem of extra and unexpected costs because of the delay in air traffic permissions. The situation hasn’t changed since we reported about this on the 23rd of March, Leon Airlines and Air Horizont still do not have Air Operator Certificates (AOC). As seen in this list of Spanish airlines with AOCs in Spain, Air Horizont and León Air are not registered. This means that both airlines must be operating using the AOC of other airlines. According to the information given on Aena’s website which can be seen in the image below, León Air is using the AOC of SkyTaxi , a Polish airline. The future looks grim for these two new companies; even during the writing of this article the Air Horizont website has stopped functioning.
SkyTaxi-LeonAirlines
Photo: Air Horizont Plan by BrunoGeiger – Flickr
