» Aena’s press release on Handling Tender

As anticipated in this blog Aena published the terms and conditions for the Handling Tender and launched a press release which translation follows:

Aena has started the first phase for the public ramp handling tender for third parties in 22 airports. The licenses awarded shall be in force for seven years.

This first phase includes all airports with less than one million passengers per year. They will have one only handling agent.

Thus, Aena continues with the handling license renewal which begun last spring when a consultation process started through which airlines and all concerned parties where invited to participate in the handling tender definition.

The handling tender is to be carried out in two phases. One for airports which serve less than one million passengers a year, with one only handling agent and another for airports which have more than one million passengers, with two and three agents to be awarded on a later stage.

In total, there will be 50 ramp handling licenses to give service at 43 airports within a seven year period.

During this first phase, those 22 airports are grouped in three lots in accordance with location and traffic (passengers and cargo):

Lot 1: A Coruña, León, Pamplona, San Sebastián, Santander, Vigo and Vitoria.

Lot 2: Almería, Burgos, Huesca, Logroño, Murcia, Salamanca, Valladolid, and Zaragoza.

Lot 3: Albacete, Badajoz, Córdoba, Granada-Jaén, Jerez, La Palma and Melilla.

Additionally, through another two separate tenders and also for a seven year period, a second handling agent will be tendered for Vitoria and Zaragoza. These agents will be for cargo only.

Quality improvement and cost reduction
This handling tender, thought to choose a ground handling agent at each airport, also intends to regulate the obligations and duties of the operator as well as the measures to ensure continuity of service.

Furthermore, the current situation of the industry, the socio-economic context in our country and the transformation that the air transport is suffering with new airlines and their new requirements have been taken into consideration when writing the terms and conditions for this tender.

Therefore, the goals to achieve in the services provided by the handling agents are:

Offer more competitive ground handling solutions to the airlines at the Spanish airports.
Adapt services to the airline requirements and to the evolution of those requirements.
Improve service quality, offering quality standards which are adapted to the client, with prices adjusted to each case, optimizing the quality-price ratio.
Contribute to increasing the number of operations at the airports.
Set an efficient service management and supervision system.
Ensure compliance with operational safety requirements, airport security and environment.
Implement an efficient coordination amongst airlines, agents and Aena

Maximum prices and discounts
With these terms and conditions Aena fixes the maximum prices for reference and encourage the handling operators to apply reductions.

Besides, the handling agents are invited to apply other fees or discounts at their discretion to the airlines. This is intended to keep the Aena’s policy of incentives to increase traffic in Spain.

Ground handling services to third parties
This tender for ramp handling services involves the tasks detailed below. Fuel services will be tendered in a different process.

Baggage services.
Assistance to operations at the runway.
Cargo and mail manipulation between the airport terminal and the aircraft.
De-icing (snow removal, ice and frost) at the following airports: Albacete, Barcelona, Bilbao, Burgos,Granada-Jaén, Girona, Huesca, León, Logroño, Palma de Mallorca, Pamplona, Salamanca, San Sebastián, Santiago de Compostela, Valladolid, Vitoria and Zaragoza.

Ground handling services to third parties move around 830 million Euros a year in Spain, out of which 540 million correspond to ramp handling services. Also, handling business employs over 18,000 people in Spain. (Source DBK, company specialized in industry studies and analysis)

Only in 2012 over 1.85 million operations were served at the Spanish airports.

Source: Aena.es

Photo: Groundforce equipment in Madrid Airport by José Masot