“Airport fees should be reduced”

“They should be reduced.”

Two words summarize the CNMC’s position regarding the strategy that Aena must apply in relation to airport taxes. The semi-state company wants to apply a 3.82% increase in the rates that airlines pay in our country for each of the passengers who board their planes. And that is a reason for obvious conflict with the companies. And especially with Ryanair.

What does the CNMC say? That the 3.82% increase that Aena has proposed for the period 2027-2031 is not the best idea. In a report titled lCNMC concludes that airport fees should be reduced between 2027-2031the body in charge of ensuring free competition in the Spanish market has a clear position.

According to the report, it is not only recommended to eliminate this increase, it is also recommended to lower rates by 0.59%. This would help:

• Increase traffic from the 1.3% calculated by Aena to the 2.2% calculated by the CNMC that will be achieved with this rate reduction.
• It would go from the 346.7 million passengers expected by Aena to the 366.7 million calculated by the CNMC.
• Reduce operating expenses by 741.5 million euros considering that the increase expected by the CNMC is much higher than that of estimated passengers. According to the agency, this indicates an operational inefficiency.

Why does the CNMC say this?. This response from Aena is part of the procedure that must be followed for the approval of the Airport Regulation Document corresponding to the period 2027-2031 (DORA III), which should be approved before September 30, 2026.

He Ministry of Transport refers to this document as:

“The basic instrument for defining the minimum conditions necessary to guarantee the accessibility, sufficiency and suitability of the airport infrastructure and the adequate provision of the basic airport services of the Aena airport network”

To finish deciding what to do with airport taxes for the 2027-2031 time frame, the General Directorate of Civil Aviation of the Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility has requested a report from Competition to provide a second opinion on the numbers presented by Aena. This step is mandatory.

Aena’s proposal before the CNMC. To understand why Aena proposes an increase in airport taxes, you have to understand some key points of your proposal. The company, halfway between state and private, proposes the following:

• Personnel expenses will increase by 16.7% between the period 2027 to 2031 and 37.1% compared to the numbers closed in 2025.
• Operating expenses (maintenance, cleaning, security or energy, among others) will increase by 18.3% in 2027-2031, which represents an increase of 49.4% compared to 2025 numbers.
• Taking 2024 as a reference, the expenses that will increase the most once the period ends in 2031 will be: security (84.8%), maintenance (102.3%) and operational and labor services (77.5%).

These data, according to the CNMC, are not realistic and exemplify problems of productive inefficiency. According to his calculations:

• Operating expenses would grow four times more than the expected increase in traffic.
• According to Competition calculations, for every 1% growth in traffic in Spain there would be a 3.3% growth in operating expenses.
• The CNMC defends that taking into account economies of scale, with its proposal Aena would be saving 741.5 million euros in operating expenses between the years 2027 and 2031 despite lowering rates since this would increase traffic.

The airlines. What the airlines propose It is, evidently, a reduction in airport taxes. Specifically 4.9%. The figure, they say, would not put at risk the investment plan that Aena has already announced for the coming years and for which it estimates that it will be necessary to spend 10,000 million euros.

They defend that a drop in rates would increase traffic and give as an example the period 2017-2025 in which the number of passengers increased by 15.3% compared to the airport manager’s forecasts. If so, they consider that traffic would grow by 3.6%.

Halfway. That is, the CNMC proposal is halfway there. Competition believes that passenger growth in 2027-2031 will be 2.2%, while Aena estimates 1.3% and airlines advance 3.6%. Furthermore, he believes that rates should go down but only by 0.59%, far from the 3.82% increase proposed by Aena and just as far from the 4.9% reduction proposed by the airlines.

Why is it important? Airport taxes are being the great battle between Aena and the airlines. Of all of them, Ryanair has undoubtedly been the most critical of the airport manager’s decisions, threatening to reduce traffic in smaller airports considering that prices are abusive. In some it has already done so. At these airports, Aena has bonuses to attract travelers and make airlines pay less money.

For its part, Aena has confronted the Irish company (the one that moves the most traffic in Spain) and has made it clear that it will not give in to what they consider blackmail. In fact, Maurici Lucena, president of Ryanair, stated yesterday that with this company’s position “the debate on airport charges will be endless” and defended that “Aena’s rates are the lowest in Europe”, in statements reported by The Newspaper.

For now, it will be necessary to wait to confirm whether rates end up rising or, as the CNMC and the airlines prefer, end up being reduced. We should know by September 30, 2026.

Photo | Wikimedia and Wolfgang Weiser

In Xataka | After leaving many Spanish airports without service, Ryanair has made another decision: to raise its prices by 9%