2023-07-08 11:07:36
In the barely 24 hours that passed from March 9 to 10, 2021, Plus Ultra Líneas Aéreas went from being an almost unknown and second-rate actor in the context of the Spanish airline sector to becoming the protagonist of a bitter controversy. Those few hours were the ones that elapsed between the Government approving aid of 53 million euros for the company from the Fund to Support the Solvency of Strategic Companies managed by the State Company for Industrial Participations (Sepi) and the start of appear the first information that doubted everything concerning the aid. From the amount, to the fact that the airline met the requirements to become creditor of it, going through the origin and honesty of some of its shareholders.
The storm around the rescue was of such depth that it not only generated a bitter political dispute between the Government on the one hand and Ciudadanos, PP and Vox on the other, but also ended up in court. They were, as they say from Plus Ultra, months of anxiety in which their operations became extremely complicated. “There were lessors who were pending the courts to close operations, banks that closed payment gateways for us…”, they recall. However, the airline continued to operate and today, as they say, things are advancing to the point that they consider that they are on the way to becoming “a benchmark in the routes it serves to Latin America.”
operational improvement
As explained by Plus Ultra, once the political and judicial storm has been overcome -all the sentences known so far have exonerated them of any crime-, they are consolidating their routes to Colombia, Venezuela and Peru, in which they have grown in frequencies with the introduction in their Airbus 330-200 fleet, an aircraft with lower operating costs and which has allowed them to reduce their emissions by 15%. The company currently has six aircraft from the European manufacturer, two A340-300 and four A330-200. In July it added a fifth A330 to replace one of the A340s, a much more polluting and outdated four-engine model.
Frequencies aren’t the only thing Plus Ultra has grown into. The airline assures that both in 2021 and 2022 it has met the gross profit targets -Ebitda- contained in the feasibility plan to which the rescue of Sepi was conditioned. In 2022, it was barely 0.9% below forecast, although its cash position was 66% higher than forecast in the plan. Their income also increased by 62.18 million, 40.44%, compared to what was required thanks, they explain, to the expansion of their routes. The company has also managed, thanks to cost control, to “mitigate the negative effect on its accounts of the increase in aviation fuel,” as they explain.
The opening of new markets for the sale of their tickets has played a crucial role in improving their income. Now, it is possible to buy them in travel agencies in Bolivia, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Mexico, Italy, Portugal, the United Kingdom, Germany and France. “We have more and more passengers coming from different parts of Europe to take our company’s flights to Latin America and vice versa,” they explain from the airline.
Loan
Plus Ultra, as corroborated by Sepi sources, is complying with the schedule of obligations that it has set in its rescue. In May, he paid the second installment of the loan, 1.59 million euros; after he paid the first in March 2022, which amounted to 884,000 euros.
In recent months, the airline has also received various certifications that guarantee its performance. In April, after passing an audit process, it obtained the IOSA certification (IATA Operational Safety Audit), the certification par excellence that guarantees that any airline complies with the requirements of international norms and standards. It has also been awarded the Aenor certificate on non-financial information and has entered the International Air Transport Association (IATA), “a milestone for the company since it will be of great help in its management to continue improving security, digital transformation and sustainability”, as acknowledged by the company’s CEO, Roberto Roselli.
At the operational level, Plus Ultra is now closely watching the deliberations in Brussels about the acquisition of Air Europa by IAG, the parent company of Iberia. From the airline they assure that they are “prepared” to assume possible frequencies to which Iberia and Air Europa can be forced to give up on the routes in which they compete for the merger to materialize. Right now, Plus Ultra competes with these companies on flights to Caracas, Lima, Bogotá and Cartagena de Indias. “We consider that we are the Spanish company with the best preparation to take them, because we already have a significant presence in the Latin American area and knowledge of these markets, as well as a customer base that already flies with us,” according to Plus Ultra.
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