Madrid – The International Air Transport Association (IATA) held an aviation day in partnership with the Ministry of Transport, to investigate the present strength and the future prospects for air transport in Spain.
The day featured a number of presentations from CEO-level contributors, including:
- Transformation at AENA
- The change process at Iberia
- Designing the future at Amadeus
- The key to growth at Volotea
- The new aviation strategy for the European Union
In his keynote presentation, Rafael Schvartzman, European Regional Vice President for IATA, set out an agenda for ensuring Spain is able to maximize the benefits it obtains from air transport.
- Including the impact of aviation-related tourism, the aviation industry in Spain supports more than 1.13 million jobs and more than EUR 80 billion in GDP.
- Over the next 5 years, Spanish air passenger growth is expected to be around 3.8% on average, faster than the growth in the UK, France, and Germany
- But over the next 20 years, Spain’s passenger growth rate will fall to 1.8%, slower the UK (2.2%) and France (2.1%). Much of this is down to long-term demographic factors, but government policies to promote aviation could enable to Spain to grow faster.
- Spain is a highly competitive nation for travel and tourism. However, Infrastructure costs are still an issue. Airport and Air Navigation charges should be competitive and independently set to reduce costs to airlines.
- More crucially, developments at European level are creating a challenge to maintain aviation competitiveness. In particular, regulation and taxation that fails to enhance air connectivity, especially consumer rights regulation, has proliferated in recent years
- Most significantly, the implementation of the long-delayed Single European Sky would create significant economic benefits for Spain. According to a new report commissioned by IATA, an optimized air traffic management network across Europe would deliver EUR3.2 billion in consumer benefits to Spain and bring in an extra 14 million passengers per year by 2035.
"Spain has a strong aviation industry and significant potential demand for air transport. Inbound tourism and business exports both rely on extensive air links. But it is vital that the Spanish government build on the competitiveness of the domestic travel infrastructure by helping to affect change at European level. Reforms to EU261 consumer rights package could generate significant connectivity benefits. Most important of all, a strong commitment to implementing the Single European Sky could transform aviation across Spain and all of Europe. SES could generate consumer benefits to Europe of EUR32 billion annually by 2035 – it is no longer acceptable for vested interests to delay reform. But only strong political action can make the required change happen," said Schvartzma
