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The Government is now open to privatise Aena by 60% Standard

In spite of the fact that Aena intended to keep 51% of the company after its partial privatisation, Hispanidad informed on Friday that this approach would have been refused by the market and hence the Ministry is forced to lose control over AenaFor their part, Aena would not accept the proposal made by some companies like Abertis for selling the Barcelona and Madrid airport management: “Territorial solidarity cannot be broken, the safety of the net must be kept”.For these reasons, the Ministry’s current plan is to privatise Aena by 60% which, according to the Aena’s calculations is estimated at 10,800 million Euros. The…

Volotea might open a base in Asturias Standard

“Talks with Volotea to open a base in Asturias continue but they could go better if Aena extended the airport working hours and improved the charges” said a representative from the local Goverment in Asturias, who confirmed the airline intends to start a base in Asturias during the next summer.If this project comes true, the main activity of the airline would go through this base in Asturias, which would gain up to ten direct routes.The airline requires Aena to extend the working hours from the current 0730-2345 LT. As for the subventions recently announced by the Minister Ana Pastor, the local representative said it looks…

The Aena’s plan to regain traffic includes Norwegian Standard

Madrid Airport T1

According to the information published by vozpopuli, the spectacular tax increase of last year caused a 6.3 million passenger loss in the Spanish airports within 12 months of July 2012. The main drop took place in Madrid where the number of passengers had decreased by 14.3% between January and August as we explained last month.For this reason, the Government is currently processing an amendment to the Budget with the subventions we anticipated on Monday.Besides, focused on Madrid airport, ElPaís informed on Tuesday that a 62-page document has been drawn up by Aena with detail on the measures to avoid the airport keeps losing traffic. The…

Subsidies for 2014: 75% to traffic increase and 100% to new routes Standard

Following with the information on new subsidies for 2014 anticipated in this blog Aena has confirmed today that they will apply subsidies for 2014 in all the Spanish airports as of January. With this, they foresee an increase in traffic by 2%, up to four million passengers.An amendment to the Budget will be added so that two different bonuses can be applied:On the one hand, every airline starting new routes will get the passenger tax refunded by 100% in those flights. Out of the corresponding total amounts, 75% shall be reimbursed in 2014 and the 25% left in 2015 provided that the…

Summarizing the ongoing Spanish startups Standard

Evening flight. Square composition / Fotolia

Following with the ongoing Spanish startups this is what the latest information says:Islas AfortunadasAeronoticiarioSCQ informed on Oct 4 that they are expecting to start operations in December with a Gran Canaria-Tenerife flight. Afterwards they intend to go extending operations to other destinations such us Madrid, Barcelona and Santiago de Compostela at first, to go on with the African destinations or the European routes of Paris, London and Berlin. But their intentions are to go far beyond and aim to fly to Dubai or even Venezuela.The airline’s home base would be Gran Canaria and the fleet would consist of A319 and A321,…

Aena to apply subsidies of 50% for all Spanish Airports in 2014 Standard

In spite of the fact that the State Secretary for Infrastructure did not rule out tax reductions for Madrid airport, the Ministry of Development is preparing a subvention plan for airlines which increase traffic in Spain by the application of discounts to airport charges that will range between 25% and 50%. Thus, Aena to apply subsidies in 2014 too.The measure, which means the biggest incentive within the European air transport market, shall be adopted due to an amendment from the party in the Government to the State Budget Law, which is currently in the parliamentary procedure.The final detail of incentives is…

Air Nostrum main share holders to sell the airline Standard

AirNostrum web site screenshot

Sources from Air Nostrum confirmed to ValenciaPlaza.com that the airline hired advisors – Seabury – who are working on a “capital reorganisation”. According to this information, the most interesting option would be to find an investor to whom they can sell the airline by 100%.Air Nostrum is currently undergoing a deep restructuring process after several years making loses. The Valencia based airline has significantly reduced activity. In fact they had lost passengers by 17.93% in August this year, nearly 1 million users with regard to the same period of 2012 and grounded a part of their fleet. These measures came with redundancy and salary cuts.All together would have made the company’s…

The Change of strategy in Iberia Handling and the expansion plan of Air Europa-Globalia Standard

A few weeks before the tender for the handling licenses in Spain starts and the operators can place bids for the ramp handling at the different Spanish airports, ElEconomista.es informed yesterday that Iberia Handling has radically changed of strategy.In spite of the fact that they said they would place bids for those airports where the profitability was at least 10%, they seem to have changed their minds and will go for as many airports as they can.In other news, LaInformacion.com published an interesting article about the Air Europa “aggressive” expansion plan to Latin America through the Brazilian airport of Salvador da Bahia. For this purpose, they are…

Budget 2014 – Aena charges Standard

The State General Budget Law was submitted to the Parliament on 30th September. The airport fees for year 2014 are included.We can confirm that, as we previously informed here, the airport fees will be increased the equivalent to the October’s CPI plus one percentage point up to a limit of 2.5%. This will be effective from 1st March 2014.It is also important to highlight that the PMR charge, currently fixed in 0.61 € per departure passenger, has been frozen for year 2014, as published in Eleconomista.es.Also, according to LaInformacion.es the approach and en-route charges are suppossed to remain frozen in 2014.On the other hand,…

New Airport Marketing Strategy in Madrid Standard

Madrid airport Terminal 4 / shutterstock

Lainformacion published yesterday that AENA is starting an “Airport marketing” strategy to acquire routes and operators in Madrid-Barajas.In the appearance of the State Secretary for Infrastructure, Mr. Rafael Catalá, before the Spanish Congress, he announced that in the coming weeks an Airport Coordination Committee will be constituted with the objective of “working to identify what is going on in Barajas and to alleviate the situation”. In this committee, a possible tax reduction would be analyzed. “We will study new strategy to enhance Madrid as a ‘hub’ and destination” said the number two of Ministry for Development. Mr. Catalá admitted the concern of the Ministry for…