Ryanair: Low cost, low safety?

• The government has accused the Irish airline of breaching regulations
• But CEO Michael O’Leary says the company is the victim of a smear campaign

ÁLVARO DE CÓZAR 19 SEP 2012 – 13:31 CET
The Spanish government has ratcheted up its long-running row with Ryanair over alleged repeated safety breaches by the Irish low-cost airline. Public Works Minister Ana Pastor said last week she would be meeting Irish government officials at the headquarters of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) to discuss changes to EU legislation that would allow Spain to fine the airline itself, rather than pursuing complaints through the Irish authorities.

Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary, during a press conference held in Madrid last month. / DANI POZO (AFP)

When speaking to the media, Pastor has avoided mentioning Ryanair by name, instead saying: “Low-cost, low-price airlines are a good thing, but we cannot have low safety.” She cited incidents ranging from the loss of cabin pressure (which occurred on a flight from Madrid to Gran Canaria earlier this month) to problems such as the identification of flights.
Her ministry is also investigating three emergency landings involving Ryanair planes in Valencia at the end of July, due to the flights running low on fuel.
Pastor, who has already talked to the Irish authorities, said she wants Spain – and any other EU member state – to have the power to withdraw an airline’s license. Currently it is just the company’s home country that can do that. But that would be, she added, an “extreme” measure, when “serious sanctions are continuously being levied.”
The minister has also been working with the International
Civil Aviation Organization and the European Commission to change the type and amount of sanctions, which will result in a toughening up of fines for companies that don’t comply with regulations.
Ryanair calls itself the world’s most successful airline, while many former passengers insist it is the world’s most hated. Within the industry, its profitability is envied, and flag carriers such as Iberia have copied aspects of its nofrills approach in an effort to cut operating costs. But is its reputation for safety breaches justified, or, as Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary claims, is Ana Pastor merely trying to protect Iberia’s market share by squeezing the competition out of the market?
Ryanair landed in Spain in 2004, and its business model proved an immediate success with short-haul passengers who are not interested in business class, a free meal or a complimentary newspaper. It has reduced turnarounds to 25 minutes, sells its tickets via the internet, and outsources pilots, who are paid by the flight. O’Leary made no bones that his objective was to have as many planes as possible in the air at any given time, and to offer
passengers the cheapest prices in the market.
Eight years on, Ryanair now carries more passengers than Iberia, making it Spain’s leading airline. Between January and August it flew 24.7 million people, giving it a market share of 20.4 percent. In a distant second place comes Vueling, with 14.1 million passengers; while Iberia trails in third place with 13.9 million.
The competition says that Ryanair owes its success to taking risks that other airlines do not. Among these is its policy of saving fuel. Ryanair pilots’ instructions are clear on this. In an internal memo dated February 1, 2010, the company reminded its pilots that the minimum legal amount of fuel as specified in each flight plan is sufficient and that they do not need to follow the practice of other
companies in requesting extra fuel during turnarounds to
cover any delays that might be caused by weather conditions or other problems during a flight. Ryanair pilots are allowed to take on just 15 minutes worth of extra fuel. The theory behind the practice is to keep the weight of the aircraft down, which burns less fuel. But the company now wants pilots to reduce that amount yet
further, which it says is costing Ryanair around five million dollars a year. Pilots who do not follow the policy must “explain their actions face to face,” the memo concludes.
“The pilots are under pressure, and this is clearly compromising safety,” says José María Íscar, the Secretary of SEPLA, the Spanish pilots’ union. “The pilot is responsible for safety and should take the necessary decision without having to think about the possible impact on his or her job.”
“No Ryanair pilot has ever been sanctioned or criticized
for taking on more fuel than the legal minimum,” counters
O’Leary in a telephone interview with EL PAÍS. “Our policy in recent years has been that the pilot should decide how much fuel is needed for a flight,” he adds.
Ryanair’s efforts to save fuel are at the center of the latest flare up with the Spanish government. On July 26, between 4pm and 11pm, the weather forecast for Barajas airport was for thunderstorms with heavy rain, along with strong winds. At 9pm the airport closed for 90 minutes. According to those working in the control tower and on the ground that day, the situation was chaotic, with heavy
traffic, and as a result some flights were redirected to Valencia airport. Air traffic controllers there suddenly found themselves having to deal with three Ryanair planes announcing Mayday calls for lack of fuel. A Lan Chile flight also had engine problems – all in the space of 15 minutes.
“I don’t want to think what that must have been like,” says David Guillamón, the press officer for USCA, the labor union that represents air traffic controllers. “A Mayday warning is not something that happens very often, contrary to what Ryanair would have us believe. Without a doubt it is one of the most difficult situations that pilots and air traffic controllers ever have to deal with. What happened in Valencia was potentially very dangerous.”
AENA, the Spanish airports authority, must take its share
of the blame for what happened that day. The morning shift at Barajas knew what was coming later, and had issued warnings that the airport would most likely be able to handle just 40 percent of traffic coming in as a result of the bad weather. In response, AENA should have warned Eurocontrol, the EU’s flight control body, which in turn would have rescheduled flights heading into Barajas. By the time that AENA took action, it was 10.10pm, the airport was closed, and air traffic controllers were struggling to deal with incoming flights.
AENA subsequently issued a press statement saying: “On July 26, the usual measures were taken to deal with storms as laid out in the regulations, thereby reducing the airport’s capacity. Nevertheless, that day there were added exceptional circumstances given the magnitude of the storm, which led to some planes being redirected.”
AESA, the Spanish Air Safety Agency, has also come under fire. Pilots and air traffic controllers accuse the organization of a lack of transparency for failing to publish its findings over the events of July 26. In the United States or the United Kingdom, information about such incidents is made available on the websites of the bodies responsible for air safety. Spain, despite having recently passed legislation supposedly requiring greater transparency by government agencies, is still reluctant to release information, which in this case could help prevent accidents.
Regarding allegations in the Spanish media that Ryanair planes were involved in 1,200 safety breaches in the first quarter of this year, Michael O’Leary told EL PAÍS that the accusations are false, and have been leaked by the Public Works Ministry.
In turn, the Public Works Ministry denies that AESA leaked any information to the media, and agreed that the figure of 1,200 safety breaches was incorrect. EL PAÍS asked the Public Works Ministry for its figures regarding safety breaches by Ryanair and other airlines of a similar size, and was told: “The information is confidential.”
O’Leary says that Ryanair’s safety record matches that of other airlines. “The Public Works Ministry is lying. We have been flying for 20 years and have not been involved in a single accident; the number of safety incidents involving Ryanair planes is no greater than that of other companies. What sort of ministry spends its time running a smear campaign against a company that is growing, and is creating jobs in the process?”
AENA and AESA have also been criticized by ICAO, notably over their handling of the investigation into a Spanair plane that crashed at Barajas Airport in 2008, killing 154 passengers and crew. In 2010, ICAO published a report slamming the investigation, saying that it found some 40 problems related to Spain’s air traffic control system. “Some reports of incidents in Spain do not reach the ICAO, and are not passed on systematically.” It also questioned whether the investigators looking into the causes of the accident were sufficiently qualified, and that the government was not bound by the outcome of the report. The Socialist Party government of the time accepted most of the findings. But earlier this summer, the
Public Works Ministry insisted that most of the problems had been corrected and that the ICAO had approved an action plan to address those still remaining.
Luis Lacasa, the head of COPAC, the Spanish College of Pilots, says that Ana Pastor is going to take personal charge of addressing safety issues in the Spanish airline industry. “We think this is a good thing, and hope to see action taken soon, and that this will mean real changes being implemented, unlike on previous occasions,” he explains. “We have proposed setting up a multidisciplinary working group to look at what happened in
Valencia, and if mistakes have been made, to take the necessary measures to make sure that they do not happen again.”
An airline is an expensive business to run, and delays can increase costs substantially, with the final responsibility for deciding when and if a plane should take off falling on the shoulders of pilots and air traffic controllers. In recent years the airline business has been subject to intense competition, particularly since Ryanair changed the rules of the game.
“Twenty years ago the costs of running an airline were astronomical,” says a senior executive at one of Ryanair’s competitors. “The business model created by Southwest Airlines in the United States in the 1980s, and then further developed by Ryanair, has changed everything. Shorter turnarounds mean savings of up to four million euros a year. Everything has been cut back to the legal minimum and this has changed the aviation industry, but flying still remains safe,” he adds.
So is Ryanair safe? There is no evidence to suggest that the company is breaking the rules, although many experts say that it is often very close to doing so. In which case, why is Spain now so set against Ryanair? For years regional governments have paid the company huge subsidies, as they saw the company as a way of bringing in more tourists.
Industry sources say that Ryanair’s competitors, who are now following the company’s lead, are engaged in a life and death struggle. For its part, Ryanair projects itself as a company that is not only making it cheaper for people to travel, but is also creating much-needed jobs in Spain.
In July, in response to the government’s plan to double airport taxes, Ryanair said it would be cutting routes and reducing the number of flights to Spain.
“Ryanair objects to the Spanish government’s decision to double airport taxes at both Madrid and Barcelona airports,” O’Leary said. “Sadly, this will lead to severe traffic, tourism and job cuts at both airports this winter.
“Ryanair’s cuts alone will cause a combined loss of 2.3m
passengers and more than 2,000 jobs at Madrid and Barcelona airports,” he added. “These will go to other, lower-cost airports elsewhere in Europe, where Ryanair continues to grow.”
In its mounting war of words with Ryanair, the Spanish
government knows that it will find a sympathetic ear among disgruntled passengers whose stories of being overcharged for baggage, getting stung for not having a ready-printed boarding pass, finding bugs on planes, suffering delays and cancellations, and not being able to take small children aboard without passports regularly make the headlines.
Consumer rights groups say that they have received thousands of complaints from Spanish air travelers about Ryanair. Take Jorge Cívico, for example, who was prevented from boarding a flight from Seville to Palma de Mallorca last summer because his four-year-old son did not have an identity card. “They told me it was the law in Ireland,” Cívico told the media. In which case, why did he
travel with a company that is sometimes so problematic? “Because the company is cheaper than any other, that’s why,” came the answer.
In the end, that is the secret of Ryanair’s success, as Michael O’Leary points out: “Have we lost any money since we started operating? No. the fact is that we have sold more tickets than anybody else.”

via http://elpais.com/elpais/2012/09/19/inenglish/1348052641_256460.html

In Spain, a Symbol of Ruin at an Airport to Nowhere

By RAPHAEL MINDER

Published: July 18, 2012

MADRID — A plane has finally reached the ghost airport of Castellón, in southeastern Spain.

Domenech Castello/European Pressphoto Agency

This statue at an airport in Castellón Province in Spain was supposed to honor an official who is now under investigation.

Rather than sitting on the runway, however, the aircraft, an aluminum model, was placed this week atop a giant statue along the entrance road to the airport — another twist in the tale of a $183 million project that has become a symbol of the wasteful spending that has sunk Spain deep into a recession and a banking crisis.

The statue, 79 feet tall and budgeted at $375,000, was supposed to honor Carlos Fabra, the longstanding head of Castellón’s provincial government and the driving force behind the airport project.

Mr. Fabra was placed under judicial investigation this year in connection with several cases of corruption and tax evasion. He has not been charged, however, and he is not expected to appear in court before the end of the year.

On Saturday, Mr. Fabra formally stepped down as the head of the provincial branch of Spain’s governing Popular Party, which he had run for 22 years. He still maintains the chairmanship of the public company that runs the airport.

Even though the airport has failed to attract a single scheduled flight, Mr. Fabra has staunchly defended his project. In March 2011, when the airport was formally inaugurated, he argued that it would provide a unique opportunity to turn an airport into a tourist attraction, giving visitors full access to the runway and other areas normally kept out of bounds because of safety concerns.

On Saturday, he again described the airport as “a necessary development tool” for his province. Castellón lies in the region of Valencia, which has a debt load of just under $25 billion and a credit rating that was recently downgraded to junk status.

The statue was commissioned by Mr. Fabra and was built by a local sculptor, Juan Ripollés, who titled his work “The Plane Man.” Mr. Ripollés is now saying that he was forced to spend $155,000 of his own money and “empty the pockets of my children” to complete a work that, he said, ended up costing about $600,000.

As part of a decade-long construction and housing boom, Spain added airports, toll roads and railway lines, often under pressure from regional politicians seeking a greater presence within the national transport network. Many of the recently built highways are now deserted, and only one-fifth of Spain’s airports made a profit last year.

Mr. Fabra’s daughter, Andrea, a national lawmaker who also represents the Popular Party, sent a written apology this week to the speaker of Parliament after a defamatory outburst last Wednesday, when Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy presented an $80 billion austerity package, including cuts in unemployment benefits. Ms. Fabra later insisted that her insult was aimed not at the jobless but at the Socialist lawmakers, who later asked for her resignation.

A version of this article appeared in print on July 19, 2012, on page A8 of the New York edition with the headline: In Spain, a Symbol of Ruin At an Airport to Nowhere.

via In Spain, a Symbol of Ruin at an

Airport to Nowhere – NYTimes.com.

Airstrip at Castellón’s plane-free airport needs to be widened

State Agency for Air Security has found that main strip is too narrow for planes to turn around

Regional officials have kept problem under wraps since April 2011

MARÍA FABRA Castellón 14 FEB 2012 – 20:45 CET

The airport in Castellón — a controversial multi-million-euro regional air facility that was inaugurated last year but hasn’t seen a single plane land — will soon see its air strips being torn up. The State Agency for Air Security has found that its main strip is too narrow for airplanes to turn around, and will have to be widened to meet regulations.

Regional officials found out about the narrow-runway problem in April 2011, when the airport was inaugurated, but kept it under wraps. The airport, the brainchild of former provincial leader Carlos Fabra, was never opened because it still doesn’t have the proper permits to receive air traffic.

The private contractor hired to run the airport for 50 years is demanding that the Valencia government reimburse the airport management firm the sum of 80 million euros for canceling its contract.

via Airstrip at Castellón’s plane-free airport needs to be widened | In english | EL PAÍS.

Still waiting for take off

It is now less than two months for the date given for the commencement of flights from Castellón Airport and there is still nothing definite to report.

Last week at a conference under the title “The impact of the airport on the Castellon economy” Juan Garcia Salas, Director of the Castellon airport, admitted that we’ve done things wrong and we have made mistakes although he did not specify what they were and made a plea to ensure that that planes arrive and the infrastructure is profitable.
He was subjected to questions from the audience, who insisted on the fact that the infrastructure continues without airplanes. Several audience members posed questions to the airport director. Among others, a German woman, who focused upon the fact that 8,000 Austrian tourists had to come through Reus last year because the airport of Castellón was not operational, a circumstance that will be repeated again this year. Salas Garcia said he went personally to Austria to ask pardon of the president of Austria for not having been able to achieve the airport.
Garcia Salas defended the airport as necesarry to put Castellón on the world map. He stated that its execution is an investment and not an expense. Acknowledging failure, he said the important thing is that the balance is positive and for it we work. In this regard, he urged the tourism sector and the Administration to begin selling what Castellón has. We have to package our product better, we have things we have not been able to exploit. Those who think it is crap, think that is your crap and you have to sell it and start to extol its advantages and not its shortcomings, he said bluntly.
As for the arrival of the first flights, Garcia Salas said it was almost almost seven months since the submission of the necessary documents for approval and, within 15 days, they will be visited by the technicians. But that is not enough. Those who bring the planes are the tour operators or companies and that rests not with me but with the tourism sector, he said. That is why we urge hoteliers in the room to start working to add value to the province, recognize that the product offered by the province is not the best in the universe and they have to improve the offer.
Garcia Salas also spoke about the search for a manager after the breaking off of the contract between the Generalitat and Airport Concessions. He said, we have to determine if Aerocas edoes this itself. If it has to do it, and that’s the order I receive, it will and if it has to outsource to another company it would would be done.
With regard to air traffic control, the airport director announced that the next council is expected to award the air traffic control to Saerco. Aerocas has had to re-process the file after the withdrawal of the previous award.

White elephants

In the past few days there has been so much in the press about Castellon Airport that it is difficult to keep track of it. It would appear that Castellon Airport has become the metaphor for waste in Spain.
Adolf Beltran in his article “Una manada de elefantes blancos” in El País claims that the airport without planes of Castellón triumphs in the world as a symbol of waste. He quotes the recent article in the Daily Telegraph “Spain’s white elephant airport 30 milion euros spent on advertising.”

There was the Giles Tremlett article “Spanish politicians 24-metre sculpture prompts accusations of megalomania” in the Guardian reproduced here last week.

And then this weekend in El País there was the rant of Antonio Muñoz Molina “La era de la fealdad” ( The era of ugliness) in which he makes reference to the airport.

“To remind that the sculpture will cost 300,000 euros is without doubt a meanness. Who puts a price on art. And after all that spending is a trifle at an airport that has cost 150 million euros, and will cost 8 million a year to maintain. In the not improbable case that no plane comes to land, the locals can indulge walking bucolically along the runway and admire in silence the sculpture of the artist Ripollés. Perhaps in a thousand years the 20-ton Castellón colossus will be one of the few visible relics of our era of ugliness.”

Ryanair claims Spanair receives illegal funding

Airline’s deputy CEO also calls Spanish carrier “inefficient, high-cost and polluting”

AGENCIES – Madrid – 10/01/2012

Low-cost Irish carrier Ryanair sought to justify the funding it has received from the Catalan government to fly out of the airports of Reus and Girona, but slammed subsidies afforded to its Barcelona-based rival Spanair as “illegal.”

At a news conference to announce 19 new flights out of Girona this summer, Deputy Chief Executive Michael Cawley said the Catalan government had habitually broken European rules on state aid in its funding of Spanair, which he described as “inefficient, high-cost, polluting and should be in receivership.”

Ryanair last year negotiated eight million euros in funding from Catalonia in order to continue flying out of Reus and Girona. Cawley said Ryanair “does not look for subsidies, but for low costs,” and “does not care” how it goes about securing them.

via Ryanair claims Spanair receives illegal funding · ELPAÍS.com in English.

How a plane-less airport spent 30 million euros on ads

Public firm continued publicity spend despite doubts over Castellón’s future; massive statue of former provincial chief goes ahead

LORENA ORTEGA – Castellón – 08/01/2012

Over 30 million euros have been spent advertising Castellón’s airport, which is not yet operational and faces an extremely uncertain future after the regional government rescinded its agreement with the contractor that was supposed to run it.

This expense, undertaken in 2003 when the construction project got underway, was repeatedly criticized by Sindicatura de Comptes – the Valencian Audit Office – which noted that all agreements were being signed “without accrediting the need for the expense nor determining the price of the contract,” and without analyzing the possible benefits for the airport itself, which is located in Castellón province, in the northern portion of the Valencian region.

The news comes shortly after the Valencian government had to be helped out by Madrid authorities to ensure it would not default on a maturing loan of 123 million euros owed to Deutsche Bank. The move underscored the liquidity problems of the most indebted of Spain’s 17 semi-autonomous regions, with a debt-to-GDP ratio of 19.9 percent.

To many people, the “airport without airplanes” has come to symbolize the wastefulness of Valencian officials in recent years, when the real-estate bubble fueled a series of oversize projects of questionable economic value.

Since then, there has been a steady trickle of cases of money squandering by Valencia’s public agencies, including Emarsa, a water treatment plant that was allegedly used by its managers to divert millions of euros to their own accounts. In this case, it was also a public company, Aeropuerto de Castellón SL (Aerocas), which made the decision to spend over 30 million euros in sponsorships, fairs and advertising events even though it was always unclear whether the airport would ever become profitable or even operational, given that the nearby provinces of Valencia and Alicante already have their own airports.

Despite the uncertainty, Aerocas sponsored sports teams such as first-division Villarreal CF, whose soccer players bore the logo of Castellón Airport on their shirts for three straight seasons in exchange for 2.35 million euros. The sponsorship was later extended to another soccer team, CD Castellón.

Aerocas admitted it cannot determine what the economic return on its investment will be, and instead talks about “an assumed risk.” Until now, managers held that the airport had to make itself known in order to attract tourists and secure agreements with the airlines. This last job was going to be carried out by the contractor with whom the regional government has just broken its deal.

Last week, the chief of Castellón province, Javier Moliner, announced that this year the airport would not be advertised at Fitur, a major tourism fair in Madrid, because “we need to promote what we have and not what we’re going to have.”

As a matter of fact, the future of Aerocas itself is up in the air after regional authorities said it would be merged into a holding to reduce public spending. Since its creation, Aerocas has doubled its personnel expense, which went up from 148,115 euros a year for three employees to the current 382,216 euros a year for a staff of seven.

In the meantime, Aerocas is continuing to build a 20-ton, 25-meter-high sculpture at the airport entrance at a cost of 300,000 euros. According to its creator, Juan García Ripollés, the inspiration for this statue is the man who masterminded the airport project in the first place: Carlos Fabra, the provincial premier of Castellón for the last 16 years who stepped down last June. Fabra, of the Popular Party (PP), is being investigated for tax fraud, influence peddling and bribery of public officials.

via How a plane-less airport spent 30 million euros on ads · ELPAÍS.com in English.

The Generalitat must pay to attract flights to Castellón in 2012

The arrival of low-cost airlines at the new airport will occasion a significant outlay from the Valencian coffers. The Generalitat are committed to spend around € 600,000 in the first year to subsidise the arrival of the 300,000 passengers that it expects in its first year of operation.
The operator now has a firm agreement with the British airline Jet2.com to start operating from 2013  and is negotiating with a dozen companies to fly into Castellón, among others, Ryanair and Wizz Air. The Irish company, has proposed ten weekly flights with routes to Charleroi (Belgium) and Bergamo (northern Italy), is asking for a public subsidy of between five and six euros per passenger. Wizz Air, that has its headquarters in Budapest and operates mainly in Central and Eastern Europe, asks for two euros.
The public investment could be even greater and reach 700,000 euros a year if you compare the numbers of passengers to Reus, an airport of similar characteristics in location and size, to that of Castellón. The Catalan airport received 3.5 million euros in aid in 2010 and attracted 1.4 million passengers, as reported by the National Competition Commission, with its main carrier being Ryanair. Thus, the 300,000 users of Castellón could attract between 600,000 and 700,000 euros in public funding in their first twelve months of operation.

Ryanair announces agreement with the Catalan government for operations at Girona and Reus

Ryanair announced on Wednesday that, ‘after months of difficult negotiations’, it has reached a pre-agreement with the Generalitat of Cataluña for increased flight operations at Girona and Reus. The airline spoke of ‘new aircraft, traffic and jobs at Girona from April 2012,’ and said it expects to increase traffic there from the current 2 million passengers annually up to 3 million within the space of 12 months. For Reus, routes, traffic and jobs will be reinstated, also from April 2012, with traffic expected to increase up to 500,000 passengers a year. Both agreements are however dependent on confirmation from AENA Spanish Airports of the cost of airport taxes at the two airports for next year. The low cost airline said in a statement that, ‘If AENA increases its already high taxes at Girona and Reus, these pre-agreements will be cancelled and the aircraft and routes will be transferred to other airports with lower operating costs.’El País indicates that Ryanair is set to receive 5.8 million € in annual public subsidies for the Girona agreement, plus land to build a hotel. The amount agreed for Reus is 3.2 million € a year.

via Ryanair announces agreement with the Catalan government for operations at Girona and Reus.

Russian tour operator shows interest in Castellón.

The local press report that the Tourist board has made further progress in attracting visitors to the province of Castellón and that the airport could receive in excess of 100,000 passengers next year.
Members of the Castellón Tourist Board, along with representatives from the airport attended the World Travel Market (WTM) recently held in London.  With 200 countries and 6,000 exhibiting companies represented, WTM is one of the world’s leading events for the tourism industry.  Andrés Martinez, second vice president of the Diputación de Castellón and deputy for tourism pointed out that we’ve had the opportunity to meet and network with almost all countries that are part of our tourism market.  Martinez said the excellent prospects that have opened in the Russian and English markets with the launch of the airport and possible routes to those countries . An opportunity that will allow us to position the Castellón brand in these markets and also two other priorities, the German and Belgian, along with the French market, that remains the largest.
Martinez, stressed that the Russian market is booming and shows great interest in the fate of Spain.  President of Marina d’Or, Jesús Ger, negotiated with the tour operator Natalie Tours for the arrival of about 55,000 Russians between next year and 2013.  The tour operator has expressed interest in selling more than 20 hotels across the coast of Castellón once the airport is operational.  One of the main meetings was with the directors of the Jet2.com airline that operates mainly from cities in the north of England and that has its own tour operator showing great interest in the province of Castellón and the airport once it is open.
Castellón Airport is now thought to be close to achieving the arrival of one third of the passengers planned for 2012. The final feasibility study calculated the arrival of 309,140 passengers for the inaugural year, 2012,.  Based on agreements so far with tour operators and negotiations with several airlines, next year could already bring about 100,000 visitors to Castellón.  In addition to the 55,000 Russians can be added the already announced arrival of the Austrian tourists visiting the province in spring in the Senior Program Reisen, plus an undetermined amount of FIB music fans.
These travellers will arrive on charter flights, to which could be added more than 70,000 who would arrive in the dozen flights whose negotiations are advanced.  This figure was derived by multiplying the number of flights carrying an average of 114 passengers.  Pedro Gimeno, the vice president of the company managing the site, Concessiones Aeropuerto, said that we are in negotiations with many companies and many tour operators.  They are working for the number of flights and passengers, but are still are unable to confirm how many.  However, recognizing  that negotiations are well advanced with four companies, among which are Ryanair, Wizzair and Jet2.com, whose flights may arrive in the summer of 2013.