The Government of Spain has proposed the limitation of the maximum price on the air route between Melilla and Madrid in the Working Group to promote a new model of transport aid for residents and non-residents, as announced today by the Secretary General of Air and Maritime Transport, Benito Núñez.
“There is a route that worries us especially that is the Medilla-Madrid route in which we are seeing that the price has increased and we wanted to bring to this working group a proposal that is the establishment of a Public Service Obligation (PSO) of maximum price limitation,” she said in a hearing with the Government Delegate, Sabrina Moh.
Núñez explained that this formula of OSPs of maximum price limitation is planned to be established in the two routes in the Balearic and Canary archipelagos and pointed out that “it can respond to that need of maximum price containment in the line”.
In fact, as he pointed out, it is a matter of establishing “a price cap, above which the operator cannot collect the tickets”. This formula differs from the conventional PSOs that are in force because it affects exclusively the price of tickets. “It is a pilot project, it is the first time that such a concrete and specific measure is going to be made, that what presupposes is that the only problem on the line is the price,” he said, referring to the fact that the problem does not lie either in the frequencies or in the services, but in the price, “which is what is distorted and which limits it in that OSP.”
Thus, they will transfer this proposal to the Working Group “to evaluate how it works, to decide whether to set it in motion or to adopt alternative measures”.
In his speech, the head of the General Secretariat of Air and Maritime Transport acknowledged the importance of transport for Melilla and stressed that this Working Group will “try to respond in the best possible way to the needs of the city”.
“I think it is good news that we start this Working Group, I think it will be a good tool to improve the connectivity of the city and we are going to put everything on our side from the Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility so that, soon, we can see the fruits,” he said.
More aerial frequencies
The Secretary General of Air and Maritime Transport explained that the change in the category of the airport from 2C to 3C enables the possibility of larger aircraft being able to operate but pointed out that, in his opinion, what the city really needs is to improve connections.
“Just by itself, with an expansion of the runway, it does not mean that better planes are going to come. The runway itself, the infrastructure, is already at 3C, but it is not only the infrastructure that determines connectivity”, he explained, and pointed out that, from April 1, the airport hours will be increased, and the airlines have already foreseen more frequencies.
“If you put a bigger plane on some routes, what there may be are fewer frequencies,” he said, while wondering if the citizen is asking for a bigger plane but fewer trips throughout the day, or a greater number of frequencies and more schedules to choose from.
Good boats at low prices
Asked about maritime transport, Núñez recalled that the tender for a new maritime contract is currently under way and that it has been appealed to the Court of Contractual Resources (TACRC) on various issues, some relating to ships serving on the line and others to the separation in batches of the contract.
“The contract provides for three connections, such as Melilla-Motril, Melilla-Málaga and Melilla-Almería, in a single lot. Let’s see in what sense the TACRC is pronounced. We have no problem, as can be another way, in modifying everything that is told to be modified,” he said.
However, he has warned that, if it is separated into two lots, there will be no possibility for the ship operating on one of the routes to be exchanged with the ship operating on another “and that will make that, at times when there is more demand on one line, that is, when a ship is empty on one line, it will not be possible to change the ship to a line that may have more demand”.
That, he explained, “is going to have a cost and it is going to have an impact on the final price of the contract and our objective is that the users of these lines, the citizens, have the lowest price tickets possible”.
In this regard, Benito Núñez recalled that a very important economic effort has been made in the tender amount of the contract, with a historical figure of 20 million euros, seeking, precisely, to have quality boats and low prices for residents.
Citizenship Listening
The Delegate of the Government, Sabrina Moh, for her part has stressed that this Working Group that has been constituted today aims to continue improving the connectivity and air and maritime transport of cities for both residents and non-residents and, within it, the demands of the citizens will be transferred.
“Listening to the citizens of Melilla is something that we have carried out from the first moment”, he said and referred to issues such as the extension of the airport hours, the demands for better boats, the best quality in the service... “All these have been citizen requests that have been made over all these years and that we have been collecting, shaping and, above all, putting the resources and mechanisms so that this affects the improvement of connectivity and the services provided,” he recalled.
“We will continue to collect, analyze and evaluate all these proposals that transfer us, but, above all, we will implement the necessary mechanisms from the Government so that they can materialize and become a reality as soon as possible,” he said.
In the meeting for the constitution of today’s working group, in addition to the Government of the Nation, through the Ministry of Territorial Policy and Democratic Memory, the Secretary General of Air and Maritime Transport and the Director General of Civil Aviation, the Government of the City and the Port Authority have participated, and the CEME -CEOE has been invited to it.