Tag Archives: Valencia

Air Berlin to close Palma hub in the first quarter of 2016 Airlines,Airports

Air Berlin 737-700 in Palma de Mallorca by Colin Cooke Photo - Flickr

Last Tuesday, Air Berlin’s board approved the cancellation of the whole domestic flight network that they operate in Spain. This means all connections between Palma and other Spanish destination will no longer operate. Hence, the German airline will close their hub between Spain and Europe. The information was revealed by ElMundo on Friday. According to their sources the first destinations where the airline is to stop operating will be Ibiza, Alicante, Seville and Valencia. These routes will have been cancelled by the end of January 2016. The remainder of routes, i.e. Málaga, Jerez, Bilbao and Faro (Portugal), will be cancelled at the end…

Ryanair opens a base in Berlin and starts 6 Spanish destinations Airlines

Ryanair's EI-EBW in Tenerife North, to operate FR5279 TFN-MAD by Dura-Ace, Wikimedia Commons

Yesterday, Ryanair announced they will have a new base in Berlin starting on October 27. From there, they will connect with six Spanish cities: Alicante, Barcelona, Madrid, Málaga, Palma and Valencia. The new base in Germany was presented during the International Tourism Fair ITB. Apart from these cities, Ryanair will also fly to Athens, Bari, Bologna, Bratislava, Brussels, Glasgow, Palermo, Riga, Rome and Venice from this new base. According the information published in Preferente, the airline announced they will operate 191 weekly flights. These services will mean an investment of 500 million dollars with the use of 5 aircrafts. The airline’s target would be to…

Castellón airport to start operations on December 11 Airports

The Castellón Airport Web Site is still under construction

Next December 11 SNC-Lavalin, the Castellón airport manager, will receive the official authorisation to start operations. The information was published this morning at elPeriodicoMediterraneo.com. In the meantime, they have undertaken initiatives to get clients. Among them, they have launched their brand new web site, www.aeropuerto-castellon.com, which is still under construction, where they offer some information. The image of this post is a screenshot of the airport’s new website. It highlights that this is “a new airport for Valencia region”. Moreover, on the left side of the screen, there are three messages in English about the advantages of the province which has “more…

Castellón airport to start operations this year (as well) Airports

Valencia Autonomous Region president presenting the Castellón airport project / PresidenciaGVA

According to LaVanguardia.com SNC-Lavalin confirmed the first commercial flight will operate in Castellón airport before the end of 2014. They foresee to have reached one million passengers per year in ten years.We had recently informed that Murcia-Corvera airport intend to start operations in 2014 as well. Probably both airports want to take benefit from the good figures of the Spanish airports in general, and Alicante in particular. Alicante gained passengers by 7.7% between January and April 2014 with regard to the same period of 2013. Alain Russel, chairman of SNC-Lavalin – the company to manage Castellón airport – said this during the presentation of the project for the Castellón…

SNC Lavalin to manage Castellón airport Airports

The “man-plane” statue built by Juan Ripollés at Castellón Airport by Sanbec / Wikimedia Commons

The Canadian group SNC Lavalin Airports (subsidiary of the Canadian engineering firm SNC-Lavalin) will exploit the Castellón Airport during 20 years for 24.5 million Euros.The airport costed 170 million Euros of public money but has no flights so far after its inauguration nearly three years ago.The award has not been confirmed yet, but the agreement seems to be very near. Details are not known for the moment. Apart from those 24.5 million Euros, the Valencia autonomous region Government would get further incomes only in the case that the airport served over 1.2 million passengers. In this case, SNC Lavalin would pay 1 Euro…

Low Cost airlines lost market in November 2013 Airlines,Airports

Ryanair flight-Low Cost airlines lost market

According to hosteltur , if we compare November 2012 and 2013, Low Cost airlines lost market for first time to a total international arrivals of 48.6% versus traditional airlines which hold 51.4% of international arrivals in November. Despite a 7.7% international traffic increase scenario, low cost airlines lost market . November Low Cost airlines factor is a 72.9% while traditional airlines have a load factor of 71.3% which indicates a reduction in the gap among the two groups of airlines which usually is over 3 points.The Touristic Studies Institute highlights for November that Low Cost airlines lost market in Madrid by 18% and the increase in…

Profitable airports dropped to eight in 2012 Airports

Palma de Mallorca one of the profitable airports / shutterstock

Despite the efforts to reduce costs and increase revenues, in 2012 the number of profitable airports dropped from eleven to eight.Thus, the only profitable airports where Bilbao, Ibiza, Lanzarote, Valencia, Tenerife South, Seville, Barcelona and Palma de Mallorca. The latter two made a 73 million Euro profit each.Alicante, Valencia and Fuerteventura entered into losses in 2012, to join a list where Madrid, Málaga, Santiago de Compostela and La Palma are emphasised.Aena, chaired by José Manuel Vargas, expect an EBITDA of 1,600 million Euros at the end of this year. Traffic has dropped in the Spanish airports by 4.4% up to October, but the foreign passenger growth might help to improve figures at the end of the year. In the…

Aena would sacrifice the secondary airports to revive Madrid Airports,Regulations

Madrid airport Terminal 4 / shutterstock

The subsidies Aena is preparing with the aim of reducing the traffic loss at the main airports lead the Industry to conclude that there has been a change of strategies.Although in a different timeline, Brussels is working to strike down the practice of financing the loss making flights.This new system will penalise the secondary airports and boost the bigger ones, especially Madrid airport, as the airlines are supposed to concentrate more flights in fewer airports.This way Aena might be trying to balance a budget shortfall and the need to find a solution to the traffic loss from the main airports which are…

Vueling to open a base in Brussels Airlines

Vueling A320 EC-HHA in Valencia airport by Rob Wilson / Shutterstock.com

Vueling will have a 180-seater A320 with his new base in Brussels, as from May 1, where they have scheduled seven new routes i.e. Rome, Venice,Lisbon, Porto, Santiago de Compostela, Ibiza and Palma de Mallorca. Yesterday, the airline announced they expect to increase their seat availability in Brussels by 108% regarding last summer. In particular, they will connect the Belgian city with Barcelona, Valencia, Alicante and Málaga apart from the other new seven destinations. With this, it will be the first time for Vueling to connect two cities out of Spain. Thanks to their base in Brussels, they will fly directly to Rome, Venice, Porto and Lisbon. All four routes will be served year round. Rome…

Air Nostrum main share holders to sell the airline Airlines

AirNostrum web site screenshot

Sources from Air Nostrum confirmed to ValenciaPlaza.com that the airline hired advisors – Seabury – who are working on a “capital reorganisation”. According to this information, the most interesting option would be to find an investor to whom they can sell the airline by 100%.Air Nostrum is currently undergoing a deep restructuring process after several years making loses. The Valencia based airline has significantly reduced activity. In fact they had lost passengers by 17.93% in August this year, nearly 1 million users with regard to the same period of 2012 and grounded a part of their fleet. These measures came with redundancy and salary cuts.All together would have made the company’s…