Iberia has been surprised by the loss of the handling service contract at eight of the largest airports in the Aena network. The airport manager today announced the result of one of the largest competitions held this year, in which the IAG group, owner of Iberia, Iberia Express, Vueling, Level and British Airways, among other airlines, was the great favorite. After learning about the distribution of awards, Iberia has declared its “perplexity” to then begin the process of reviewing the scores that justify it and challenging them, if possible.
The contest is valued at around 5,000 million euros for the next seven years and is strategic for all the companies involved. “Iberia will begin all the necessary procedures to review the scores of the contest in each airport where it has not obtained one of the licenses and will exercise the appropriate actions that correspond to it,” the company said in a statement.
The company, which last week announced the reconversion of thousands of contracts in its ground services division, has lost the license at airports the size of Barcelona-El Prat, Mallorca, Alicante, Gran Canaria, Tenerife South, Ibiza, Bilbao or Malaga. Adolfo Suárez Madrid does retain bars, the largest in the network and its center of operations, and keeps Zaragoza, Valladolid, Burgos, Huesca, Logroño, Salamanca, Almería and Murcia.
The company has highlighted in a statement that, at these airports, punctuality rates have been greater than 99.5%, “well above what is required by the specifications and with a high degree of customer satisfaction” and that the economic offer at all these airports included discounts “substantially higher than those of the previous competition.”
Paradoxically, the loss of airports has occurred at the hands of Globalia, the group that owns Air Europa, which has been its biggest rival in Barajas and whose absorption by Iberia is pending approval by Brussels. Groundforce, Globalia’s ground operator, has been one of the main winners, having licenses for 12 airports. ) other companies such as Aviapartner (13 licenses in 15 airports) and Menzies (7 licenses in 7 airports) are also making a strong appearance.