Yesterday, the 2016 General Budget process was finalized at the Parliament with the approval of the amendments which were previously included at the Senate. These amendments will be incorporated into the final text which will be published in the Spanish Official Gazette (BOE) on January, 1 2016. As expected, the parliament approved the 1.9% reduction in all the airport charges. This reduction will be effective as of March, 1 2016.
Furthermore, the discount in passenger and security charges for passengers connecting flights has increased from 35% to 40%. This will also be effective on March, 1. For this purpose, Aena considers that passengers are connecting flights when they “land in an airport managed by Aena S.A., on a flight, and board a new flight with the same ticket and at the same airport, within a maximum of 12 hours, with a different flight number and destination other than the origin”. This definition has been extracted from the Aena Price Guide 2015 (page 12).
Moreover, these amendments also include the extension of the incentives to new routes and increase of traffic. These incentives mean rebates of 75% of the passenger taxes for the increase of traffic of one airline on a route. If the route is a new one, then the rebate would be 100% of the passenger taxes. All subject to conditions as per the same incentives last year. In terms of the airports and the routes, there is a list with all the airports that are being considered as the same destination with regard to these incentives.
