Binter’s commitment to the handling business has been almost successful. The Canary Islands company has been awarded three of the six licenses offered by Aena to provide the ground handling service – the handling– at the three major airports in the region: those of Gran Canaria, Tenerife South and Tenerife North. The firm thus enters fully into an activity that moves around 300 million euros in the Islands every year, a volume of business that is mostly generated precisely in the three main aerodromes of the Archipelago.
Aena, the semi-public company in charge of managing the national airport network, resolved this Tuesday the allocation of the 43 licenses which enable them to provide ground assistance services, and more specifically the ramp service, at the 41 large Spanish aerodromes. On the one hand, Binter put out to tender through its subsidiary Atlántica Handling the permits to carry out this service in the green islands –La Palma, La Gomera and El Hierro–; and on the other hand, sealed an alliance with the giant Menzies Aviation to bid for licenses for the remaining five Canarian airports. Atlántica Handling’s proposals for the green islands They were not the most valued. On La Palma, the ramp service was until now provided by Iberia, which is renewing the concession for the next seven years, although it will no longer do so alone. The La Palma aerodrome goes from one to two licenses, and the second has gone to the multinational of Belgian origin Aviapartner. It’s more, Aviapartner also manages to win the handling at the airports of La Gomera and El Hierro, where Atlántica operated until now. However, the bulk of the business is not in the green islandswhere, on the other hand, Binter will continue working with the formula of autohandling –The Canary Islands airline does not depend on third parties for ground assistance. Where activity is really concentrated is in the remaining five aerodromes, which have constant aircraft traffic that, of course, require ground assistance.
The island group enters fully into an activity that generates around 300 million a year in the region
In the case of the Lanzarote airport, Aviapartner maintains the license it already had, while the Swiss Swissport loses its license in favor of Groundforcea subsidiary of the Globalia group – parent company of Air Europa – for the air transport business. handling. In Fuerteventura there are no changes and both Aviapartner and Groundforce will continue to offer the service ramp over the next seven years. However, there are changes, and significant ones, in Tenerife North and in the two jewels in the crown of the regional airport network: Gran Canaria and Tenerife South.
At the Los Rodeos airfield, north of the island of Teide, Iberia maintains the license it already had and the Binter-Menzies duo snatch the second to Groundforce. In the Reina Sofía, south of Tenerife, the Belgian Aviapartner – owned by the venture capital fund HIG – manages to keep its permit, but the Canarian-Kuwaiti alliance – the Agility group, from that Persian Gulf country – closed a little more than one year the purchase of the until then British Menzies– gives him the surprise to Iberia and keeps its license. And the same thing happens in Gran Canaria, where Groundforce is maintained and the surprise from Binter-Menzies to Iberia.
The multinational has 60% of the company and the Canary Islands airline, the remaining 40%.
So with his entry into the business of handling In the three main airports of the Autonomous Community, Binter marks a new milestone in its career. This Tuesday, the Canarian capital company reaffirmed its commitments in terms of investment and contracting. The plan was to invest around 35 million euros and hire around 1,500 people if it was awarded the service in the five large aerodromes of the Islands. With the licenses to operate in Gran Canaria and Tenerife, the alliance will be able to execute most of that plan. It must be remembered that Menzies Aviation has 60% of the company resulting from the agreement with Binter. The remaining 40% of the joint venture is in the hands of the Canarian business group that presides Rodolfo Nunez.
Iberia’s anger
The satisfaction in Binter contrasted this Tuesday with the discomfort in Iberia. Even more than discomfort, since the signature of holding company Anglo-Spanish IAG did not hesitate to charge against Aena after knowing the resolution of the contracts. In a forceful public statement, Iberia showed its “perplexity” at the result of the award of the licenses of handling; defended his work at the airports of Gran Canaria and Tenerife South, where it claims to operate “with punctuality rates greater than 99.5%, much higher than what is required by the specifications”; and even announced the imminent start of “all the necessary procedures for the review of the contest scores at each airport where one of the licenses has not been obtained.” The company “will take the appropriate actions that correspond to it”warns after remembering that it had or is planning an investment of more than 120 million euros.
