So this summer Palma is going to be the new Mediterranean base for nine low-cost airlines, despite objections from the local government and residents living near the airport about an increase in air traffic leading to a rise in air pollution and noise.
However, as Palma’s Son Sant Joan airport is one of the most lucrative of the Spanish network of airports, the objections fell on deaf ears. Perhaps they could not hear because of all the planes landing and taking off. Who knows?
Now, apart from airport authority Aena wanting to make even more money, along with the airlines, because Majorca is going to be very much in vogue again thanks to security issues elsewhere, EU officials have warned UK-based airlines that they will have to relocate their headquarters to the EU or sell shares to EU nationals if they want to avoid seeing routes within continental Europe axed after Brexit.
To operate intra-European routes an airline must have a significant base on EU territory and a majority of their capital shares must be EU-owned. This means that some airlines would have to sell off shares after Brexit to maintain the rights to fly between cities like Berlin and Rome. So is this another reason for the sudden interest in demand for Palma?
This said, the airlines are only setting up summer bases: why not continue flying all year round? Ok, reduce the schedule, but as we have seen again Scotland is going to be isolated with no direct flights. So Palma is being used when it suits the airlines, not the passengers.
And another question I have spent years trying to find the answer to is how many of the passengers using Palma’s hub actually stay here. The airport figures are always a very grand 22 million or more, but how many of those passengers caught a connecting flight to their final destination?