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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…

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,…

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…

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…

IAG suspected of undermining Iberia Standard

Iberia's new log

EuropaPress informed yesterday that Iberia will present its new brand on October 15.EurasiaReview.com have translated this piece of news into EnglishNew aircrafts, totally redesigned cabins in all long-haul aircraft that will put both tourist and business class sections at the top of the market, plus a new website with expanded travel planning options , are other aspects of the programme, along with a major boost in punctuality –Iberia now ranks 7th amongst major airlines– and numerous improvements to passengers’ airport experience at Iberia’s T4 hub at Madrid- Barajas airport.You can find the full piece of news in English here:http://www.eurasiareview.com/01102013-iberia-unvell-new-brand-image-october-15/In other…

British tourism makes Alicante be the first Spanish airport in low cost flights Standard

According to a report by the Institute of Tourism Studies from the Ministry of Industry, 80% of the operations in Alicante are low cost. These airlines will move 3.5 million passengers in the low season. This has helped the airport win back six hundred thousand out of the one million passengers lost in 2012 due to the crisis and the Spanair demise. The big growth of airlines like Norwegian, Jet2.com, Ryanair and the Russian operators have led the airport to the first place in the ranking of low cost airlines Out of 6,595,725 passengers within the first eight months in 2013, 5,280,000 flew…

A new strategic plan for Iberia to alleviate the adverse circumstances Standard

CapitalMadrid.com published yesterday a very interesting analysis on the Madrid airport current situation, where they highlight the decrease of easyJet and Ryanair. Ryanair reduced passengers by 32% and easyJet by 40%, being 14% the overall decrease for the airport between January and August.Iberia—the main operator—and Iberia Express together lost passengers by 19%. Struggling to overcome the current circumstances they keep facing problems with pilots and are working on a new medium-term strategic plan for Iberia.IAG aims to reduce costs at Iberia to make it competitive, above all in the long haul. As for the short and medium haul they will use Iberia Express…

IAG lost 1.6 million passengers. Ryanair 2.3 million Standard

IAG lost 1.6 million passengers

After Aena published the statistics in the Spanish airports, many pieces of news reflect and try to explain the passenger loss between January and August 2013. Trying to do so, we have extracted the figures for such period in 2012 and 2013 and have created a spreadsheet with the passenger difference that each operator served in the Spanish airports.The result is a very comprehensive list which includes all the operators with over 1 million passengers from which we can highlight the following:IAG lost 1.6 million passengers. This means Iberia, Iberia Express, Vueling and British Airways, all together, have an overall decrease…