He Government is preparing to carry out the liberalization of the towers control in seven Spanish airports: Tenerife South, Tenerife North, Malaga, Gran Canaria, Bilbao, Santiago and Palma de Mallorca. It would be the largest privatization of air traffic control management in Spain since 2010, when the liberalization of this sector began.
He Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda will shortly publish a ministerial order that will be submitted to a public hearing with the aim of liberalizing the air control service in the towers at several Spanish airports. The objective of this process is to collect allegations and comments on the text, sources from this department informed Europa Press.
The Minister of Transport, Raquel Sánchez, already anticipated during the last edition of the fair tourist Fitur that the Government was going to analyze the extension of the privatization of the control towers in Spain.
The objective of this decision is to improve the competitiveness of air transport in Spain, “with maximum levels of quality and safety, in such a way that it contributes to a lower price of air tickets and greater punctuality”.
The outsourcing would affect the aerodromes with the highest traffic influx in Spain, only surpassed by Barajas in Madrid and El Prat in Barcelona. Between the seven flight centers they account for a third of all air traffic in national territory. It would be the largest privatization of air traffic control management in Spain since 2010, when the liberalization of this sector began.
The proposal responds to Aena’s request on January 31, in which the airport manager proposed to the Ministry to continue with a new phase of opening the aerodrome air traffic service to new certified providers in a series of airports, as confirmed Ministry sources.
The experience so far of the service provided by private providers has been “significantly positive” in terms of quality and economic efficiency, for which reason the Ministry’s assessment has been favorable to Aena’s request.
COST REDUCTION FOR AIRLINES
In this way, the future ministerial order will allow Aena to choose between various providers, “always with the highest levels of security but with lower rates”, which would contribute, according to the Ministry, to a reduction in the operating costs of air transport. .
The Ministry ensures that this decision means deepening a structural reform with two objectives: “to improve the quality of the tower control service and its economic efficiency.”
As explained by the Ministry of Transport, security is fully guaranteed because the new companies that provide this service will be certified, according to the requirements established in the European Regulations and that have been included in the Royal Decree that regulates the certification procedure of civil providers of air navigation services, approved on July 23.
In other words, only companies that are certified by the Spanish Security Agency or another European Union supervisor may provide the tower control service.
With this second phase of liberalization, the Executive tries to provide this service in the most efficient way, according to sources in the sector. In 2018, a CNMC report recommended that the Government extend liberalization to a greater number of towers.
According to the conclusions of the report of the highest competition authority in Spain prepared five years ago, “the implementation of the liberalization in the 12 towers has generated increases in efficiency in the provision of services.”
At that time, the CNMC recommended that this activity be opened to competition, “in order to obtain additional efficiencies in this market, as well as in related markets, so that savings, quality improvements and increases in consumer welfare are generated.”
DRIVERS STRIKE
The Transport plans come at the height of the boiling point of the sector, and it is that recently Serveo (Portobello and Ferrovial) has acquired full ownership of the first control towers that were privatized in Spain and that were in the hands of FerroNATS, a joint venture with its partner British NATS. In the coming months the FerroNATS brand will disappear and will be renamed Skyway.
FerroNATS is the air traffic control company currently responsible for the management of the towers at the airports of Alicante, Valencia, Ibiza, Sabadell, Murcia, Córdoba, Lleida and La Seu (Andorra), as well as the Air Traffic Management Service. Platform (SDP) of the Barajas airport.
Apart from this corporate operation, the sector is on strike due to the disagreement between the air traffic controllers who work in these towers and the Business Association of Civil Air Traffic Providers of the Liberalized Market (APCTA), which includes private market providers liberalized, Saerco and FerroNATS.
The strikes, called by the USCA and CCOO unions, began on January 30 and will continue during the month of February (6, 13, 20 and 27) due to the failure of negotiations of the IV collective agreement of the liberalized tower controllers due to the disagreement in salary increases for the next few years.
The call for a strike is addressed to the 160 professionals who provide control services in the towers of the airports of A Coruña, Alicante-Elche, Castellon, four winds, The iron, Fuerteventura, Ibiza, Sherry, Lanzarote, The Palm, Lleida, Murcia, Sabadell, Seville, Valencia and Vigo.
