The Coalición Canaria Group in the Cabildo of Lanzarote will present a motion to the next plenary session to demand that the Government of Spain take "effective and legally viable measures" to stop the "continuous tariff speculation" on flights between the Canary Islands and the Peninsula. A situation that, despite the 75% discount for residents, "continues to unjustifiably increase the price of tickets and limit the right to mobility of the citizens of the islands."
In its initiative, Coalición Canaria denounces the failure of the PSOE's proposal to declare the Lanzarote-Madrid route as a Public Service Obligation (PSO), a measure announced as "imminent" in 2023, in the middle of the election campaign, but which "never had the necessary legal or technical support." According to the European Commission, this proposal "lacked legal endorsement and was never formally processed before the European institutions."
"What was presented as a closed agreement was, in reality, an empty promise for electoral purposes," denounces the spokesperson for the nationalist group, Samuel Martín, who believes that this fraudulent use of institutional discourse has generated enormous social frustration and a profound loss of credibility in a territory that structurally depends on air transport.
Faced with this situation, the CC motion proposes a battery of realistic and sustainable measures to guarantee the affordability of air transport between Lanzarote and the Peninsula, including the establishment of subsidizable reference prices for residents, especially on high-demand routes, as well as direct compensation funds for travel for essential reasons such as health, studies or family reconciliation, and agreements with airlines to stabilize fares in times of high demand, such as Christmas, Easter or summer.
It also requests the National Commission of Markets and Competition (CNMC) to open an investigation into the evolution of prices on these routes, given the possibility of abusive practices or indirect collusion between operators.
Coalición Canaria will transfer this motion to the Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility, to the CNMC itself and to the Senate, with the aim of gathering the necessary support for a structural and lasting solution to the problem of air connectivity in ultra-peripheral regions such as Lanzarote.
The nationalist spokesperson, Samuel Martín, assures that Coalición Canaria will continue "leading the defense of fair and affordable connectivity for Lanzarote and La Graciosa, inside and outside the Cabildo", and warns that "we are not going to allow more deceptions or inaction in the face of a structural problem that fully affects our quality of life."