The airlines live a golden moment after passing through the trauma of the pandemic and for this summer they have prepared a record program of 1.4 million operations and 246 million seats, 6% above the previous summer season, according to the … Employers of the wing sector. Of that advance will be especially benefited Canary Islands With an increase of 11% capacity, despite the tensions between airlines and the government for the non -payment of the residents, on which today the president of Ala, Javier Gándara, has warned that they endanger the connectivity of the Peninsula with the Balearic and Canary archipelagos, in addition to Ceuta and Melilla.
According to the airlines, as of March 15 The Government still owes 425 million to the companies that carry out these operations. But the problem is perceived that it will not be resolved in the future because the budget item consigned for this 2025 (560 million in the public accounts of 2023, extended in 2024 and 2025) “has practically consumed to face the debt dragged from 2024”, when it is also estimated that the expense of this item ascends to 1,250 million.
«Everything indicates that the Government will not present general budgets this year, that is, it will have what is left of budget allocation by 2025 after covering part of the debt of 2024. 385 million have been paid at the end of January of the debt of 2024 that came to amount to 810 million, then only 175 million of the PGE of 2025 are left to pay the 425 million defaults that are dragged from 2024 plus the 2024 1,250 million estimated by 2025. It is a snowball », is the summary that Gándara has made.
For the also director of Easyjet for southern Europeit is “a very worrying structural problem”, while the government continues to say that it is an administrative and punctual issue. Therefore, he asks the Executive to act “immediately” given the uncertainty that there is a solution that ends “financial suffocation” that ensures that the airlines support for non -payments. It occurs when also companies in the sector are making an “effort” to increase connectivity with the affected regions. In this sense, Gándara recalled that the A capacity supply on the routes between the Canary Islands and the Peninsula has reached 61.81 million seats in 2024, which represents 9.6% compared to 2023 and 18% compared to 2019. In the case of connections between the Balearic Islands and the Peninsula, in 2024 55 million seats were offered, 6% more than 6% 12.85% above 2019.
At the moment, the president of Ala says that it does not appear that any airline has cut operations to the islands for this reason and that it will be an individual decision that each company takes for the next winter season.
Gándara has also spoken about the closure today of the Heathrow London airport (the busiest in Europe) after declaring a fire in a nearby electric substation of which the infrastructure is nourished, and has said that an event of these characteristics will take a few days to resolve. «There are many planes, many companies and many passengers affected. We hope that normality will be recovered as soon as possible ». At the moment, today the 54 scheduled operations that were in Spain with that terminal have been suspended.
Traffic congestion delays
Another issue that continues to worry about companies is the congestion of air traffic in Europe for the amount of delays it is causing. And in the summer, the time of more mobility will not be for less. In this sense, Gándara explained that a complicated summer is expected after the recovery of prepandymia traffic in the countries of our environment that, although they do not reach the growth of Italy and Spain, the first to recover and emerge with very high growth, they are already registering increases in traffic to 2019 or higher levels, which can stress the European network this summer. “Last summer the delays on the route due to air traffic congestion in Europe increased more than 50%, it is imperative that this situation is not repeated this summer,” he said.
In order to fill the airplanes in summer, some external factors such as the evolution of the unstable economic and geopolitics also grind due to military conflicts. But to go everything on the fly, it aims to close another record year by passenger air transport considering that in January and February 39.8 million travelers were transported, 5% more over the same period of the preceding year.
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