On Monday, Aena held a meeting with the associations to continue the consultation process over airport charges.  ElMundo published a piece informing that the airline associations ALA, ACETA, AECA and ELFAA were discussing the prices to be charged by Aena during 2016. In this line, yesterday ElConfidencial informed that the National Competition Commission is using all available legal resources to force Aena to lower their prices. According to this article, sources from the industry estimate this reduction to be between 8 and 10%. The Ministry of Development is very upset though, so an intense battle is expected.

Competition demands that the dual till model which Aena has implemented be replaced by a hybrid system of single till where a part of the commercial incomes (duty frees, shops, restaurants, etc) would be directed toward reducing the Aena prices that airlines have to pay. The Ministry had already disregarded a previous report published by Competition in July on the Royal Decree with the Document for Airport Regulation (DORA). However, Competition managed to have a clause inserted in that Royal Decree which entitled them to publish a report on the 2016 Aena prices.

The Aena prices are regulated, so they must be approved via the General Budget. The Budget will have to consider DORA which, in turn, would take Competition’s opinion into consideration. Therefore, Competition has many possibilities to determine the incomes which are a consequence of the regulated activities performed by Aena between today and 2027. And what Competition has requested so far is that Aena’s incomes be reduced between 75 and 100 million Euros. This would mean a loss of between 1,000 and 1,200 million Euros in Aena’s share value.

In the meantime, another article in ElConfidencial informed yesterday evening that the impact of the above mentioned information has made Aena’s shares drop 5% during the day. Still, the value of the shares is more than 40% over its original value.

Photo: Air Canada Boeing 767-300ER taxiing at El Prat Airport / Wikimedia Commons – Russavia