The subsidies promoted by the Ministry of Tourism, Industry and Commerce of the Government of the Canary Islands to recover air connectivity allowed a 4% increase in the supply of air seats to the islands compared to 2019, the year before the pandemic.
Through the public company Turismo de Islas Canarias, the Ministry allocated 3,550,000 euros, 1.4 million more than initially planned, to 23 airlines that operated domestic flights, with the European Union and with third countries in the area to the archipelago in October and November last year.
“The increase in seats confirms the important role played by this subsidy system, which is necessary to guarantee the profitability of routes with the Canary Islands, compensate for the disadvantage of the islands in attracting air traffic and thus promote the arrival of national and international tourists”, says Yaiza Castilla, Minister of Tourism.
In total, the airlines operated 3,040,711 seats to the islands in October and November 2021, 125,000 more than in the same period of 2019, in pre-pandemic times, when the companies offered 2,914,182 seats to the archipelago.
The total amount subsidized per airline was calculated according to the incentives per flight seat operated, which could be up to 6 euros in the case of international commercial flights and up to 3 euros in the case of national commercial flights. The maximum threshold that each company could obtain within the framework of this subsidy was set at 300,000 euros.
This latest call for subsidies was added to two previous ones also framed in the context of the pandemic, the first of which was approved in November 2020 and valued at almost one million euros, and the second focused on the months of April and May for a value of 500,000 euros.
“With these actions we managed to increase the profitability of air routes to the Canary Islands, in a complicated context in which the mobility restrictions caused by the pandemic have caused the biggest stoppage in the history of the airline industry, causing great losses that have not yet been resolved”, recalls Castilla.
