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Author Archives: Jorge Masot

Brussels Airport sets Vigo and Seville as the two potential destinations in Spain Standard

According to the local media in Vigo, Faro de Vigo , Brussels Airport marketing and operation department setsVigo-Peinador Airport as one of two current potential destinations in Spain, together with Seville.Vigo is included in the official list as an airport with enough traffic to open a profitable regular connection. According to the information published by Aena, in 2012 there were over 3,400 people who went to Brussels from Vigo through another airport, due to the lack of direct flights. However, this report does not consider, for example, the thousands of passengers who, going from Vigo, might have flown to Brussels directly from Porto.The connection between Vigo and…

Works to improve the Gran Canaria airport terminal Standard

On the 28th of August Aena published a press release about the works which are being carried out at Gran Canaria Airport. A summary translation follows below for your information: The new configuration for the security controls will be already working tomorrow, the 29th of August. This will let passengers go to the boarding area through the duty-free shops placed just behind it. Aena is carrying out these works in phases in order to minimize the impact on the passengers, scheduling most of them in low season. All phases will be available in peak periods. The target in this first phase…

Air Nostrum to lease out six aircrafts Standard

The Air Nostrum plan to increase revenues by leasing a part of their fleet is starting to work. After several attempts to rent some aircrafts to operators from Panama or Uruguay, the airline is about to reach an agreement and lease some planes to an Argentine airline.According to local media Sol Líneas Aéreas will operate between two and six 50-seater CRJ-200 from the Air Nostrum fleet as from October, who no longer use this aircraft type due to lack of efficiency for their traditional schedule market.This operation would follow the new guidelines that Carlos Bertomeu, CEO for Air Nostrum, announced last November. The airline started a…

Goodfly to connect Tenerife with Rome, London and Berlin Standard

Goodfly Logo

We have noticed that many of you are seeking information about Goodfly, in continuation with our post which gave some details about them.You might like to know that they are now using the Danube Wings fleet to operate their programme.In fact, the Danube Wings IATA and ICAO codes (V5/VPA) are displayed in the Aena’s web site as Goodfly.As already explained, Goodfly do not have an AOC.In other news, La Opinión de Tenerife reports that Goodfly have announced new direct flights to connect Tenerife North with Rome-Fumicino, Berlin-Tegel and London-Heathrow starting in the second week of October.According to this piece of news, Goodfly clarified some of these connections are…

Foreign tourism anticipates a record year Standard

Despite the bad start of the year and the poor expectations based on flight bookings, the beginning of the high season (July to September) anticipates a record year in hotel occupancy and income thanks to the foreign tourism.A key for this change to happen is the strength of our three big source markets (the United Kingdom, Germany and France) which bring 55% of the foreign tourism. The first data handled by entrepreneurs indicate unprecedented occupancy rates since the start of the financial crisis. The expected rates would be over 80% in August in five out of the 6 major touristic regions…

Handling licenses in Spain Standard

In continuation with the tender for the handling licenses in Spain, please see below the following two pieces of news which might be of your interest:Menzies aims to become one of the 3 main handling operators in SpainEuropa Press informs that Menzies will place bids to become one of the three main handling operators in Spain.They aim to get the ramp handling licences for, at least, one of the 3 groups in which the 24 smaller airports have been spread. Each group would have an overall passenger volume by 3 million and they will be the first invitation to tender. Afterwards, there…

Vueling shares no longer listed Standard

Vueling shares are no longer listed on the stock exchange According to the information found in lainformacion.com Vueling shares are no longer listed on the stock exchange since the 9th of August once the takeover bid by Veloz Holdco has been settled. Veloz Holdco is a subsidiary of IAG, which is the resulting company from the merger of Iberia and British Airways. IAG is supposed to hold Vueling shares by 97.52%    

Aena to sell Aena Aeropuertos by 51% after buying Luton Airport Standard

Today, we are translating this piece of news that eldiario.es published yesterday. We believe this may help to follow the current situation in the privatisation of Aena Aeropuertos: Sources from Aena have confirmed they are about to reach an agreement with Abertis in order to disinvest from twenty international airports that they own and manage through TBI. They intend to get rid of all but Luton Airport. All the shares from TBI—currently Abertis (90%) and Aena (10%)—would go to the public company, with the financial support from the insurance company AXA. Experts from the airport industry have assured that the acquisition of Luton by Aena…

Alicante-Elche is now the official name for the airport Standard

Alicante-Elche Airport / Wikimedia Commons

As we had already anticipated, Alicante has now officially changed names to become Alicante-Elche.This became official as soon as it was published in the Spanish Official Gazette on the 12th of July. For further information you can download the document here.If you check the link to Wikipedia from our airport data base, you will notice the information there is already updated. However, they are keeping “Alicante Airport” as the name despite referring to the airport as Alicante-Elche in the body of the definition. Our Airport Name Policy requires the same name as the one displayed in Wikipedia and that is why we are keeping ”Alicante Airport” in…

Four out of the ten most profitable Spanish airports are in the Canaries Standard

After the huge investment during the last years in the Spanish airport net there are three terminals which are closed, four have no scheduled flights and other twelve which hardly have planes.Out of the 42 airports managed by Aena, only 10 are profitable and 4 out of them are in the Canaries. Tenerife South is leading this profitable airport list. The most updated information from the Ministry of Public Works (Fomento) is of 2011 when Tenerife South got a profit for 24.98 million euros, Gran Canaria obtained 22.93 million and Lanzarote 8.67 million. Fuerteventura finished that year with a balance for 1.21 million euros. In the contrary, La Palma lost…