The Minister of Transportation and Sustainable Mobility has defended the AENA tariff policy in the Congress of Deputies, the rates paid by airlines to operate in Spanish airports. At the same time, he has criticized Ryanair’s demands that for weeks he demands a decrease in those same rates, which he blames his decision to leave airports and routes during the next months.
“Ryanair has made a decision to eliminate 800,000 seats and 12 routes, justifying her for excessive Aena rates,” said Oscar Puente during his speech at the Congress Transport Commission. “It’s not such, Ryanair will offer 1.5 million more seats, he will relocate them in other airports. You will stop operating in Jerez and Valladolid, go where. ” Also, it will reduce traffic in Vigo, Santiago, Zaragoza, Asturias and Santander. “This aggressive commercial policy has occurred in other countries when they have not folded to their interests.”
Puente has indicated that Ryanair, in reality, “will concentrate on larger airports, where passenger rates are higher, difficult to understand, or easy.” “The cost of operating in a tourist airport is 60% higher than a regional one.” Specifically, the bridge has listed, the average rate in Spanish airports is 10.35 euros per passenger, but at regional airports, for Aena’s incentives, “the cost is 2 euros per passenger.”
Claimed discounts and more public funds
Puente has explained in Congress that Ryanair’s announcement “occurs after not attending to its proposal to increase traffic”, in the same airports “that moved both to me and Aena. What has not made public is the content of your proposal. I will only use one term: crazy. ”
Specifically, Puente has broken down that Ryanair wanted to increase operations in “800,000 more seats in 14 regional airports between 2024 and 2026”. In return, it required a “discount on rates and support for territories consisting of reversing the tariff adjustment of 2024 in all airports”, as well as “massive discounts of 50% or 100% for increasing its traffic. For each passenger who kept from one year to another, 50%; And for each new, 100% of the rate for seven years. ” Also, a contribution of public funds by local and regional authorities for five years, worth 150,000 euros year, for each route; and 250,000 euros year for each new route, has listed.
“It would be disproportionate and dangerous” and “it would be illegal by the frame, it would be considered state aid,” he added. “The modus operandi”, of this abandonment of routes, “when there is no margin of reaction of competitors, it could fit into a blackmail modality that the State or can or will accept,” said Puente. At the same time, he has indicated that the Ministry maintains a dialogue with other airlines to take over to the routes that Ryanair leaves.
“We are not going to modify our rate policy” because Ryanair asks for it, although the ministry will continue talking to the company, “but we put the rules. They are set by the Spanish State, Spain puts them, ”he stressed.
Kick to the minister
Puente has charged Ryanair’s decision to leave Valladolid airport. “Why does it go? of this city. “It’s very clear. Ryanair makes a decision that is trying to give the Government of Spain where it hurts. Quito the flights at regional and low -occupation airports and incidentally I hit a good kick in its parts to the minister removing the Valladolid Barcelona flight that has been operating for 60 years. ” He has also advanced that “there are no doubt that it will be operated by another company, because it is a profitable flight; But it will not be as a consequence of blackmail. ”
The person in charge of transport and sustainable mobility has also affirmed that “Ryanair advocates the breakdown of the airport model.” “I want to be very clear, it would be a barbarity to break the aerortuario system, with practically free rates that would entail the need for public contributions financed by all Spanish taxpayers who would end up being considered state aid,” he repeated.
Also, that the Irish airline “looks for weaker interlocutors” in the “territories where airports are settle.” “It would introduce insecurity, in favor of the shareholders of the airlines. It seems logical that Aena does not want to transfer resources from her shareholders to Ryanair’s shareholders, ”he explained. “To face a company that makes blackmail is easier if it is done in the name of an entire state.” Otherwise, airports would end up financing with public money, “such as Castellón that costs the Generalitat 10 million euros a year.” In that sense, Puente has stressed that small airports, if they were outside the structure “there was no way to keep them open.”
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