The Balearic air connectivity is in danger due to the non -payment by the government of subsidents to residents advanced by airlines. The Airline Association (Wing) has warned that the airlines that connect the Balearic Islands with the Peninsula … and interislas flights operate could be forced to stop operating these routes in some cases or decrease frequencies “in the unsustainable situation and economic suffocation generated by the impairment of the Executive.”
As of January 2025, the debt to the airlines operating these routes amounts to 810 million euros for the amounts advanced in concept of 75% residents in the price of the tickets.
Ala fears that this debt will rise to 1.5 billion This year with General State Budgets (PGE) extended if the government does not take measures.
The association recalls that airlines are mere intermediaries and that they are responsible for the execution of the program, acting as collaborating entities of the Administration in accordance with the provisions of the regulations, applying the subsidy percentage legally established at the time of the acquisition of the subsidized ticket, and subsequently liquidating before the Administration, in this case the General Directorate of Civil Aviation (DGAC), the remaining amount, once the passenger has made the trip object of the corresponding bonus.
The DGAC is in charge, on the other hand, to manage the budgetary credits planned to deal with the subsidy and pay the amount of subsidies to the airlines.
The airlines apply the subsidy in the resident ticket that must subsequently liquidate the government through the DGACcharged to an expandable loan of the general budgets and that, in case of exceeding the amount consigned, can be subject to extension by the Ministry of Finance.
However, airlines have warned that the Executive has been delaying such liquidation during 2024, increasing the amount owed to the airlines that provide these services and that, today, it has not been fully liquidated by the administration despite the repeated requirements by wing.
“The budget allocation for subsidies in air transport to the residents of the Balearic Islands, as well as those of the Canary Islands, Ceuta and Melilla is inflated,” said the president of Ala, Javier Gándara.
Extended budgets
According to the president of the Association, the allocation in the General Budgets of 2023, extended in 2024 and 2025, It has been completely insufficient To cover subsidies of up to 75% in air services rates and everything points out that the problem that airlines have suffered in 2024, supporting this multimillion -dollar debt of the government, will be repeated this year 2025 with extended budgets. “The Executive must put a solution as soon as possible,” Gándara has claimed.
The government assigned 560.81 million in the PGE By 2023 in subsidies to regular air traffic of extra-peninsular residents, a amount that has been widely exceeded by a demand for these grants above the expected.
To this amount have joined other 170 million Through the contingency fund to finance credit modifications, but it has also fallen short and is still aware of paying an important sum of hundreds of millions to cover the amounts advanced by airlines for subsidies.
For wing, the lack of budgetary commitment by the government contrasts with the effort made by airlines increasing the air connectivity of these regions and, with it, their social and territorial cohesion.
Specifically, the capacity offer on the routes between the Balearic Islands and the Peninsula has reached 55 million seats, 6% more than in 2023 and 12.85% above the 2019 data, being the fundamental connectivity for territorial cohesion, commercial exchanges and economic and social development.
In addition, this lack of financing by the Executive is also harming travel agencies, since it is hindering them to charge the amounts for subsidized ticket management spending that pays the State through the airlines.
«This situation is compromising the financial sustainability of these airlines to the point that, if this continues, the operation of the routes between the Balearic Islands and the Peninsula and Interislas could be unfeasible and, therefore, their economic development and the generation of employment, said Gándara, which adds that it must be taken into account that Air transport is the possibility of tourism activity in the Balearic Islands, main engine of economic growth and employment generator of the archipelago.
The President of the ALA has demanded that the Government pay as soon as possible to the companies and to correct this situation in the future with sufficiently equipped and most realistic budget items with the demand needs to avoid “calculation errors” such as the one registered in the public accounts of 2023, with a item for these subsidies less than that of the preceding two years, specifically 652 million euros in 2021 and 641 million 2022.
Airlines expect that 2025 will have to withstand payment delays because Everything points out that the 2023 budgets will be extendedthat is, there will be a game of 560.8 million to cover the subsidies to residents this year, whose expense is estimated that it reaches 1.2 billion euros, to which the 810 million euros pending 2024 would have to be added, which predicts more delays and defaults by the State to the airlines if there is no alternative solution.
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