The Government recovers plans to privatize more control towers at Spanish airports, where there are currently 16 centers under this type of management. The Ministry of Transport will shortly issue a ministerial order to a public hearing for the liberalization of this service at the airports of Bilbao, Santiago, Palma de Mallorca, Málaga-Costa del Sol, Tenerife South, Tenerife North and Gran Canaria. Seven centers that concentrate a third of all air traffic in Spain.
The proposal would offer Aena the possibility of choosing between various providers. Something that, in principle, would also imply lower fares and lower air transport costs. In the Government’s opinion, this situation would also end up being transferred to cheaper ticket prices for users.
Javier Gándara, president of the Airlines Association (ALA), expressed this Wednesday his satisfaction with the decision to advance in a new phase of liberalization that, according to what he indicated, “has allowed us to gain efficiency in the service, advancing in the reduction of costs and in improving quality, without compromising safety» where it has already been carried out.
As he explained, this improvement has been “decisive” in the path of reducing airport fees from 2015 to the present, “which has been a fundamental pillar for the growth of tourism, the economy and connectivity in our country.”
One more step
The airlines, in fact, consider that the Government should go one step further and also bet on liberalizing approach services – not only those at the aerodrome – as other countries such as the United Kingdom or Germany have already done.
For now, the Executive will only touch the towers. They defend that security is guaranteed, since only companies that are certified can provide the service. But his plans coincide with a particularly tense moment in the sector, before the strike called by the unions of the air traffic controllers of the already liberalized towers.
Behind the strikes is the failure in the negotiation of the collective agreement with the APCTA business association, of which the private providers SAERCO and FerroNATS are a part. The talks to agree on a salary increase are completely broken and the strikes, which began on January 30, will continue on the next February 13, 20 and 27.
In total, the call for strikes is addressed to the 160 professionals who provide control services in the towers of the airports of A Coruña, Alicante-Elche, Castellón, Cuatro Vientos, El Hierro, Fuerteventura, Ibiza, Jerez, Lanzarote, La Palma , Lleida, Murcia, Sabadell, Seville, Valencia and Vigo.