The air sector is preparing for what will be, if no new variant of Covid arises that complicates travel, the first summer season without restrictions and with long-haul destinations relatively open.

Air Europa, from the Globalia group, is lagging behind in this race to capture demand, as its future is still uncertain: a few months before the summer season, it is still negotiating its union with Iberia, from IAG.

Most of the airlines that operate in Spain are preparing their flight schedule for the summer.

The official season starts in June, but engines are already heating up for Easter.

The key will be in the recovery of long-haul flights, where Iberia and Air Europa compete.

Ryanair, the airline that transports the most passengers in our country, has presented its roadmap this week.

Iberia is planning its own and its commitment “is clearly for the long haul.

Although Ómicron has been a bump, the key is to recover the frequencies to destinations in Latin America, especially, "explain company sources.

The airline of the Globalia group

has already recovered 90% of the occupancy on these flights

, according to sources from it, although they have much fewer frequencies.

His situation is delicate, since he has a large debt (he received a bailout from Sepi and requested an ICO loan) and his survival largely depends on Iberia closing the purchase operation.

Negotiation

The deadline that both companies had set to reach an agreement expired a few weeks ago, but

they have decided to give themselves more time,

given the difficulty of the negotiations, in which the Government is also involved (which could enter the capital of Air Europa) and indirectly Brussels, which ensures that the union does not infringe competition rules.

«The industry is already going up and with the reactivation, Air Europa will improve.

There is no rush to reach an agreement.

We have more fleet ordered and we are up to date with the interest payments, which is what we have to repay for now.

There is no need to worry about the rest until 2026, so the entry of the State into the shareholding through a conversion of debt into capital is not necessary at this time, ”point out Globalia sources.

In addition to the debts accumulated with the State (475 million from the SEPI rescue fund), the financial situation of the airline is compromised with other bank creditors who have supported Javier Hidalgo in the repurchase of shares of the group founded by his father .

Sources close to the latter insisted these days that

the negotiations with IAG for the acquisition of Globalia are not going in the right direction.

"Nobody is talking to us so, being the owners, there can be no agreement."

Globalia sources ruled out specifying the real situation of the negotiations.

summer period

While Air Europa continues in a kind of limbo, the competition brings out the artillery to face the summer campaign.

If 2021 closed with 43% of the passengers who flew in 2019 (with 58% of the flights operated), the forecast for this 2022 is that it will recover, especially long-haul routes, which were still touched by the restrictions from non-EU countries.

Javier Gándara, president of ALA, the Association of Air Lines (which brings together more than 80 companies operating in Spain), believes that in the summer season (April-October) "the offer will already be similar to that of 2019, but the question is whether it will be possible to recover the demand, this will depend a lot on the restrictions”.

«

The expectation, without omicron, is that in the month of December we would have finished with 80% of the passengers that we had in 2019

», explains Gándara.

The month closed with 70%, precisely because of the impact that the new variant had on travel.

In January, the airports of the Aena network registered more than 10 million passengers, which means that they have recovered 67% of the traffic that they had in the same month of 2019, before the health crisis broke out.

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