SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, 24 Feb. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The general secretary of the Canary Islands Coalition (CC), Fernando Clavijo, has shown this Friday the “high concern” of the Canarian nationalists before the purchase of Air Europa by IAG, the business group of which Iberia is a part.
“We are concerned about the business concentration because it is heading towards a monopoly situation in which we put the resident discount at risk, since we do not have the guarantee that prices will not rise artificially,” said the senator after meeting with the President of the Union of Air Traffic Controllers (USCA), Pedro Gragera de Torres, to analyze the announcement made by the Government of Spain to hand over to private companies the management of the control towers at the airports of Gran Canaria and Tenerife.
“There is already a serious problem suffered by non-residents who want to visit our islands, but we can make it worse both in accessing users to adequate rates and in spending public money to pay the 75% subsidy to residents “, details in a note of his training.
Fernando Clavijo also cited another effect of the purchase of Air Europa by the Iberia Group, the management of ‘slots’ (landing and take-off rights) in the connections between the islands, the peninsula and the continent.
“If these Air Europa slots are now concentrated in the hands of Iberia, the market will suffer because there will be no competition in the high-demand time slots,” said Clavijo, to highlight “the complicit silence” of the current Government of the Canary Islands .
Once again, he said, “he is neither here nor expected to defend the general interest and defend above all the users of air transport that in the Canary Islands has no alternative,” said the Coalition candidate for the Presidency, citing the effects that had the disappearance of Spanair as a disappearance of seats and an increase in ticket prices.
“If Iberia now buys Air Europa, what the most recent experience and common sense say is that it will be more difficult to find seats and that prices will rise, that is, the merger of Air Europa with Iberia is bad news for the Canary Islands since the The reduction in competition will affect the 75% subsidy and the final price paid by the user. The less competition, the less repercussions the subsidy will have on the final price and vice versa”, assured the general secretary of CC.
Clavijo has also reiterated the rejection of the Canarian nationalists to the privatization of the management of the control towers in the airports of the islands.
AGAINST THE GENERAL INTEREST
“This action announced by the Ministry of Transport supposes, de facto, that AENA acts from private hands as a machine to make profits to distribute it to businessmen,” said Clavijo, to regret that this will to privatize Aena “goes against the interest general and public service”.
Given this ministerial order to tender the private management of the control towers of the main island airports with the highest passenger traffic (Gran Canaria, Tenerife South and Tenerife North), the Coalition candidate for the Presidency of the Canary Islands stressed the risk of the privatization process of the towers of the Tenerife and Gran Canaria airports that “nothing guarantees that the service will be provided with better quality”.
Faced with this scenario, Fernando Clavijo questioned the “privatization claim” of the Ministry of Transportation and stressed the risks of this transfer to private hands to the detriment of a good public service at airports.
“On the contrary,” said the senator for the Autonomous Community, “we fear that by maximizing the benefit of private companies over the public service, both the quality and the safety of an essential service will be affected because there is nothing that guarantees us that the airports will have greater operational security”.
As background, Clavijo recalled the last situation of a controller strike that occurred in the United States, where the federal government was forced to place the military for air traffic management in the face of a strike contaminated by private interests and not by parameters associated with quality. of the public service.
In the case of the Canary Islands, Fernando Clavijo also linked the “privatization wave” of the Government of Spain in the field of air navigation with a “flagrant breach” of the Statute of Autonomy.
“ACCOMPLICE SILENCE” OF THE GOVERNMENT
“We are facing the violation of a Statute that recognizes the right of the Autonomous Community to participate in decision-making that directly affects airports and ports in the archipelago,” said the Coalition Secretary General, “because the silence is very worrying accomplice of the current Government of the Canary Islands in the face of this shameless intention to continue taking advantage of highly profitable airports for the State to the detriment of the public service, you just have to see what state the terminals are in”.
Fernando Clavijo regretted the policy of the Ministry of Transport to act in the Canary Islands network of airports only based on economic profitability and not with parameters of better public management at aerodromes.
“We do not understand why the privatization intention is carried out through the back door because the Government of the Canary Islands either does not find out or is in favor of this privatization”, affirmed the CC candidate for the Presidency.
In the Coalition, he said, “we have always been against the privatization of Aena and, in the case of the control towers, of an essential service in which the Canary Islands must be heard before making any decision.”
From the union Unión Sindical de Controladores Aéreos (USCA), Pedro Gragera de Torres stressed the outright rejection of the professionals to the order of the Ministry of Transport to open the management of the control towers in Gando, Tenerife North and Tenerife South to private tender .
“The ministerial order project tries to pillage a public service, that is, a low-cost reduction that would result in inefficiency because it would multiply the number of controllers through the entry of private companies,” he said.
In practice, warned the president of the USCA, the privatization would leave the entire airport network of the archipelago in private hands without the measure having an impact on lower rates.
“The air traffic control service in the Canary Islands already has the lowest rates in Europe and in no place where it has been privatized have ticket prices dropped,” said Gragera, using the island of Ibiza as an example.
“It happens on the contrary, private companies are introduced that the only thing they are trying to do is get a benefit for themselves and not for the public service or for the user because liberalizing does not imply lowering prices if prices are already low,” said the president of the union of USCA drivers.
