An air route between the Peninsula and the Canary Islands will be a Public Service Obligation to control prices

The Spanish and Canary Island governments have agreed that, on an experimental basis, an air route between the Peninsula and the Canary Islands will be a Public Service Obligation (PSO) to control the excessive rise in prices, the Minister of Transport, Sebastián Franquis, reported this Wednesday.

In a statement, the Minister indicated that the route that will be decreed as a Public Service Obligation will be launched before next summer and the decision on which one it will be will be adopted at an upcoming meeting of the working table established between the Ministry and the Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda.

“For the first time, the governments of the Canary Islands and Spain have agreed that we are going to implement a PSO on one of the routes that operates between the Canary Islands and the Peninsula,” said Sebastián Franquis, who added that “we are clear that we are going to implement it as a pilot experience because we want to see the results that will occur after it is launched."

The objective is to limit prices, especially at times when it has been found that there is a significant increase in the price of tickets in the summer and Christmas periods, added Sebastián Franquis.

The Minister and part of his team analyzed this Wednesday, together with the Secretary General of Transport of the Ministry, María José Rallo, and the General Director of Civil Aviation, David Benito Astudillo, the data handled by both administrations on increases in air ticket prices above the average on routes between the Canary Islands and the Peninsula.

This meeting will be followed by others of the working table to determine which route this pilot PSO will be applied to, as well as meetings with the main airlines to explain the scope of the measure.

This PSO that will be established on a pilot basis, once the route on which it is decreed is decided, will mean that ticket prices are regulated and therefore a limit will be established on their price to avoid disproportionate increases.

“We do not want this measure to condition the Canary Islands to lose connectivity with the Peninsula, which is logically not our objective, but, I insist, a measure of proportionality that limits prices in those increases that are occurring and at the same time increases the connectivity that the Canary Islands currently have with the Peninsula, which is very important, since we have recovered both the number of passengers and the connectivity with dozens of destinations as we had before the pandemic,” said Franquis.

The Minister also indicated that the establishment of this PSO and the reasons that justify the scope of the measure will be brought to the attention of the Ministry of Economy, the National Commission of Markets and Competition, and the European Commission itself.