The employer describes as “shameful” the rise in air rates that Aena is preparing

The head of the great Spanish employers in the Tenerife demarcation delved into the different speeds with which Aena acts, in his opinion, depending on whether they are measures to increase income or if, on the contrary, they require an increase in spending. In short, Alfonso contrasted the “speed” with which the semi-public company – 49% of its share capital is in private hands – has decided to raise airport taxes with the “slowness” when it comes to “improve services.” Without going further, The president of the Provincial Confederation of Businessmen of Santa Cruz de Tenerife (CEOE-Tenerife) gave the example of the airport in the south of this island, which has always been used as an example of an inappropriate infrastructure for a tourist destination that is a world leader. Alfonso thus appealed directly to the board of directors of Aena – the entity is in charge of managing the entire network of airports of national interest – to reconsider a rate increase that “is not understood” and that threatens to jeopardize the continuity of certain air connections and, therefore, part of the income of the tourism industry.

LIn this way, the bosses take the side of the Government of the Canary Islandswhose tourism counselor and Employment, Jessica de León, has already made clear the resounding rejection of the regional Executive to a measure that will not only make flights more expensive -and, by extension, the vacations of those millions of tourists who visit the Islands every year-, but also paints new dark clouds in a foreseeable scenario in the short and medium term is not exactly rosy. Not in vain, Germany has already fallen into recession, and the United Kingdom seems to be heading for a new and irremediable mortgage crisis. The same Minister of Tourism specified this Friday in an interview with this newspaper that the year will end with very good numbers in the first regional industry, although “the second half of the winter season is at stake” -from January to March-April 2024- and, above all, the following summer season. The 4.1% rate increase is added to the tightening of the emission rights market and the kerosene rate.

Three “taxes” on the commercial aviation sector, in the words of De León, practically in a row.

Serious capitalization problem

Aside from the controversy over the announced increase in airport charges, the president of the CEOE-Tenerife also warned that there are local companies, companies Canary Islandswhich are taking investments planned for the Archipelago to other places where they have a presence due to the impossibility of executing them here. The time of maturation of investment is so large as a result of administrative procedures, that is, of bureaucracy, that they have no choice but to allocate that money to projects outside the Autonomous Community. Consequently, the Canarian economy is in risk of suffering a “serious problem of decapitalization”stressed Alfonso, who pointed out that businessmen “do not dedicate ourselves to counting profits, when we have them, but that every year we start from scratch”, that is, that each year new investments and projects must be planned and executed that, if they cannot be develop in the Islands, they end up going abroad.