The airline industry applauds the reduction of navigation charges for the coming year

Airlines have welcomed with great satisfaction the Government's announcement to lower navigation fees by 12% in 2019, despite maintaining in principle the rates for this year and for 2020. The Aceta association assures that air fares have dropped 14% in the last day.

The government's plans for air rates remain unchanged for 2018 and 2020, but next year there will be 12% reductions, triple what was planned, according to what was announced by the Minister of Public Works at the World Air Transport Congress, held in Madrid last week.

The rates aéreas remained frozen from 2012 to 2017. In July last year, the Minister of Public Works announced an 11.5% cut by 2020. The original plan was to lower rates by 3% in 2018, 4% in 2019 and 5% in 2020.

The head of Fomento has linked the lowering of navigation rates to the government's commitment to achieve a unified European airspace. The new prices proposed by Fomento will mean that Spain will have the lowest air fares in the European Union.

In ten years, air transport prices in Spain have been reduced by 14.3%, according to industry data, which highlights the effort made by airlines in a highly competitive market;reas, in a highly competitive market, so that the passenger's pocket did not suffer in the past from the increase in airport charges”,  as indicated in a press release from Asociaciñías Españolas de Transporte Aéreo (Aceta).

It also argues that the emergence of low-cost airlines and the consequent re-adaptation of network airlines, as well as fierce competition in the sector, has led to a significant increase in the number of airlines in the sector; as well as the strong competition in the sector, has forced the whole sector to resize operators without putting a brake on this downward trend in ticket prices.

In Aceta's opinion, this drop in costs is partly justified by the performance of traffic, with significant increases in the last two years, reaching almost 250 million passengers in 2017, touching the traffic forecast for 2021.