Turismo Lanzarote has warned of the possibility that Ryanair will cancel up to five flights with Lanzarote from the airports of Madrid and Barcelona. The company has announced that it will reduce flights with Spain by 12 percent for the next summer season and Turismo Lanzarote has blamed the Ministry of Development for this decision by Ryanair for its airport tax policy.
"They are systematically wrong with the airport tax policy they have imposed," says the Tourism Councilor of the Cabildo de Lanzarote, Carmen Steinert. Precisely, due to the increase in taxes, Ryanair has justified a 35 percent reduction in its air traffic in Barajas and 23 percent in El Prat. "This will mean a generalized cut in the frequencies assigned to the Archipelago", Turismo Lanzarote has warned.
The airline has already announced that in March 2013 it will cancel 648 weekly flights throughout Spain, which represents an average of 12 percent of its operability, affecting around 4.5 million passengers. In addition, it warns that the measure will mean the destruction of 4,500 jobs throughout the country, according to Turismo Lanzarote.
However, the company's vice president, Michael Cawley, has pointed out that the process is reversible "if the Spanish government and its airport monopoly, AENA, reduce operating costs", in a clear allusion to the airport taxes set by the Ministry of Development. The fees, according to Turismo Lanzarote, have suffered an average increase in Spain of 10.2 percent, around 2.5 percent at the Guacimeta airport. Likewise, the State plans to increase these fees by another 8 percent during the next 2013, as a result of what is established in the General State Budgets.
"An outrage to Guacimeta"
Carmen Steinert understands that the measure announced by Ryanair is a new "outrage" to the Guacimeta airport, "one of the most profitable in Spain, with a profit after taxes of 8.67 million euros in 2011". "The European Commission has opened an infringement procedure against the Government of Spain for the increase in fees that airlines must pay at airports operated by AENA", the councilor has indicated.
This file responds to the complaints filed by several airlines, including Ryanair, and representative associations of the travel and aviation sector, which allege that the increase does not respect the rules of the European Union. The Spanish Government has a period of two months to respond to the questions of the Community Executive. If the explanations of the Spanish authorities do not convince it, the Commission will ask for changes in the fees, and even, could take the case to the Court of Justice of Luxembourg.
The European directive on fees (2009) establishes minimum requirements for the calculation of fees and requires prior consultation between airports and companies before any variation. It must be remembered that the airlines denounced, at the time, that they were not consulted about the modifications of airport fees, and that the fee per passenger in Madrid has doubled while in Barcelona it has reached almost the same percentage.
The Iberia strike
In addition, Turismo Lanzarote fears the effects of the Iberia strike, scheduled for the coming days of December, which arrives on "very special dates for families" and which will mean "a setback for the island's tourism sector".
In principle, the union representatives of UGT, CCOO, USO, Asetma, Sticpla and CTA-vuelo have called stoppages for the week of December 14 to 21, in the middle of the high tourist season in the Canary Islands. "This strike is a new blow for an island, Lanzarote, which this year has already suffered notable setbacks derived from the reduction of air connectivity", the councilor has indicated.
Thus, she recalled that "Iberia Express has operated and stopped operating with the Guacimeta airport, Islas Airways has disappeared, the Globalia group is initiating an employment regulation file that may affect the Air Europa company and, in addition, the slots that were left free after the bankruptcy of Spanair are still not covered".
In principle, the strike called for those days will affect 183 flights that land or take off from the different Canary Island airports. In Guacimeta, it will have direct consequences on the 14 flights scheduled by the company for those days with Madrid and Barcelona and, above all, on the handling staff, which has various airlines as clients.
Turismo Lanzarote has assured that it "respects the legitimate right that assists workers to join the stoppages called", but has invited "the parties involved to dialogue to reach a consensus that avoids them".
Public service obligation
In relation to the loss of air connectivity that the Lanzarote airport has suffered during the present year 2012, the Tourism Councilor joins the theses of the Government of the Canary Islands to ask the Government of Spain to consider "decreeing the public service obligation for air transport with the Peninsula in order to guarantee the frequencies and prices of flights".
"They should assess it in Madrid since the disappearance of links with the continental territory and the consequent increase in air fares are putting our competitiveness as a tourist destination and our connectivity as inhabitants of a territory surrounded by sea at risk", she has stated.
