Aeronova is a small Spanish airline based in Valencia that was acquired by Globalia – Air Europa’s owner – at the beginning of this month. This was reported by LasProvincias on November, 8. On Tuesday, Preferente.com announced that Globalia will now convert this airline into Air Europa Express in order to operate their regional flights. The information was relayed by Álvaro Middelmann, former Air Berlin director for Spain and now consultant for Air Europa.
The airline is expected to start operations around March 2016. Its home bases will be Madrid and Palma. Despite being a part of Globalia, the new airline will be independent from Air Europa. According to the information provided by Middelmann – who is in charge of this project – Globalia intends to grow in the long haul with Air Europa and in the short haul with Air Europa Express. The target is to be more competitive and reduce costs.
Air Europa Express is expected to start operations with Aeronova’s ATR. From there, Air Europa’s embraers would be incorporated progressively. The staff of this airline will be totally independent from Air Europa. Therefore, a staff selection process will start, in which the work conditions offered to pilots and cabin crew will be different from those of Air Europa.
This project is a heavy blow for Air Europa’s employees. In their opinion, with this project they are breaking their collective bargaining agreement. However, Globalia has already informed them that this is not subject to discussion and is “a consequence of the industry requirements”.
