The Board of Directors of Spanish Airports and Air Navigation (Aena) Airports has awarded the tender for the tower control service at 13 airports in its network to the offers that have obtained the best technical-economic scores.
Saerco (the first private company to obtain certification from the State Aviation Safety Agency as an air traffic service provider) will provide the tower control service at the airports of Lanzarote, Fuerteventura and La Palma.
Aena explains in a statement that the duration of the contract will be five years, extendable for one more. The award price of the service for the 13 towers has been 18.1 million euros per year, which represents a saving of almost 50 percent compared to Aena's current costs, which amount to 33.9 million euros. After the signing of the contracts with Saerco, a transition phase will begin, which will be carried out in a staggered manner.
During that period, the successful bidder will have to obtain for each of the towers in which it is going to provide the service the designation as air traffic service providers by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation, after a favorable report from the State Aviation Safety Agency (AESA), and enable its control personnel in each of the units to which they are assigned.
During the transition phase, the air traffic service provider at the airports of Lanzarote, Fuerteventura and La Palma will be Aena, although in the towers the control personnel of Aena may coexist with that of the new provider, which will be in a training period.
For their part, Aena's air traffic controllers who provide service in these towers must decide whether to subrogate with the new provider, in accordance with the economic and labor conditions applicable to the new provider; whether they continue in Aena -where they would be assigned a new destination-, or whether they break their contractual relationship with Aena, as established in Law 9/2010, which regulates the provision of air traffic services.
ACN