There are any number of airports named after famous people. Generally speaking, they honour someone of particular merit who deserves to be associated with the airport's location. Occasionally, though, the naming causes a fuss. This was the case with Ian Fleming International Airport in Jamaica. Many a local felt that a Jamaican should have provided the name. The Bond writer got it on account of his Goldeneye Estate, which is next to, yes, James Bond Beach.
Names like Liverpool John Lennon brook little argument, except among those on the McCartney side of the divide. But the international fame that Liverpool acquired through Lennon (and the other fabs) was thorough justification. While that city has (or had) other candidates, they might have proved more contentious. It couldn't have been Liverpool Bill Shankly or Kenny Dalglish without having upset the blue side of Stanley Park who would have pressed the case for Liverpool Howard Kendall or Dixie Dean.
Generally speaking, the names are of modern provenance, but not all. No doubt to the disgust of Balearic historians who insist that Columbus didn't come from Genoa but was the son of either Felanitx or Ibiza Town, Genoa's airport is Cristoforo Colombo. It might be hoped that no one suddenly comes up with absolutely incontrovertible evidence of Columbus's Felanitx origins because this might make some pause when it comes to a new name for Palma airport.
A proposal for renaming the airport isn't the consequence of all the nonsense regarding the name of the city - for the moment, it is officially Palma, but will doubtless revert, officially, to Palma de Mallorca when the Partido Popular assume power once more at both town hall and regional government levels. The airport is known and will continue to be known, for the sake of international codes, as Palma de Mallorca. But it has an alternative name as it is, i.e. Son Sant Joan.
This name has a great deal of antiquity. Strictly speaking, its spelling is incorrect. It should be Son Santjoan, as it comes from the Santjoan family who came to Mallorca at the time of the conquest in the thirteenth century and acquired land: one possession was the Son Sant Joan where the airport now is. Other than the name of the possession, the Santjoans don't have any great claim on Mallorca's past, and the family line in fact died out in the seventeenth century.
The alternative name (or one in addition to Son Sant Joan) which is being proposed is Aeropuerto Ramon Llull. The person who has made the proposal is the Council of Mallorca's president, Miquel Ensenyat, and he has done so at the end of the "year" of Ramon Llull and at a time when he has been assisting the case for Llull to be named a saint and a doctor of the Catholic Church. Ensenyat also believes that the use of the Llull name would elevate Mallorca's cultural status and therefore be in line with, for example, Florence being Amerigo Vespucci or Pisa being Galileo Galilei (no mention of Genoa's airport, one notes).
Ensenyat of eco-nationalist, Mallorcan socialists Més appears to have the backing of the PP's Maria Salom, newly the national government's delegate in the Balearics. She says that she likes the idea and will raise it with the national ministry of development (and so also with Aena, the airports' authority). She does recognise that there are likely to be technical issues, though it should be noted that Madrid's airport was renamed following the death of the prime minister who led Spain through its initial democratic transition. The full name is now Aeropuerto Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas.
Should they rename the airport after the mediaeval man of mystery? I can think of no particularly good reason why not. Indeed, having often said that Llull isn't anything like as widely known internationally as Mallorcans might like to believe, it could have some benefit. There again, would anyone ever refer to it as Ramon Llull or be aware of the name or know he was? As it is, who outside Mallorca ever refers to the airport as Son Sant Joan? It's Palma (or Palma de Mallorca).
It would be more a case of domestic consumption, one fancies. And in this regard there would be support, if a poll of nearly two years ago is anything to go by. At the start of 2015, the Diario de Mallorca journalist Matias Vallés made a prediction that Mallorca's hoteliers would look to have the airport renamed Aeropuerto Rafael Nadal. A subsequent poll of readers offered four names - Llull, Nadal, Joan March (the widely despised Franco's banker) and Antoni Maura, the only Mallorcan to have been prime minister and one who verged on dictatorship before it had actually come into fashion.
Unsurprisingly, there wasn't a great deal of support for either March or Maura. Overwhelmingly (76% of the vote), Llull was favoured; Nadal got 17%. So there you have it, Llull it will be. Or may be.
Showing posts with label Son Sant Joan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Son Sant Joan. Show all posts
Thursday, December 15, 2016
Friday, October 17, 2014
Privatising The Spanish Airports
The partial privatisation of the national airports agency, Aena, is a matter which should be of interest to us all and so not just to the millions of tourists who pass through Son Sant Joan each year. It is a privatisation which, where Palma airport is concerned, could be positive or not so positive. Son Sant Joan is the most profitable Spanish airport. Shareholders like profits and they like to see them grow and to see their dividends also grow.
It is now more accurate to talk about Enaire rather than Aena. Since July this publicly owned company has been in charge of the country's civil airports; it currently owns all the Aena shares, for which offers have been received from the private sector for an initial 21%. The remaining 28% which comprise the partial privatisation (49% of shares) are due to be offered next month. Three "core" shareholders have now been confirmed. They are Banca March, Ferrovial, which is involved with the management of several British airports, and the London-based Children's Investment Fund (TCI).
The response to the offer of this 21% shareholding was, at best, not what the government had hoped for. It would seem that the three shareholders were the only applicants. The remaining 28%, thrown open to wider public subscription, may create greater interest, but there are concerns that the lacklustre start to the privatisation process might be repeated.
A problem for Enaire/Aena is that there are so many airports which aren't profitable, and they include Madrid. There are 49 airports in all and only around a fifth of them make a profit, in addition to which there is debt which many of them have. Palma is exceptional in this regard as it carries no debt. Barcelona, on the other hand, has a similar profit level but a massive debt.
The privatisation has not been met with total approval. The CCOO union is against it, as is PSOE, which is supposedly going to attempt to paralyse the sale in Congress (quite how is not clear). The opposition is all about guarantees of jobs, but there should also be a further concern, which is what investment might be forthcoming as a consequence of privatisation. Is the sale simply a way for the government to improve its accounts? But this question aside, Palma, because of its already high performance, might benefit further. As things stand, it already in a sense gets back much of its profit through the state budget allocation. The worry might be all those airports which are a drain and which demand a diversion of investment, though this assumes that they don't get closed, and it has been argued - justifiably - that Spain has way too many airports.
One airport which is a drain is Menorca's. It runs at a substantial loss - nearly 10 million euros in 2012. It would never be closed because, unlike some airports on the mainland, it is essential both for tourists and residents. But its tourism does perhaps help to explain why it does make a loss. Menorca receives half the number of tourists that Ibiza (together with Formentera) does. Ibiza airport makes a profit, not a huge one but it is profit nonetheless and its debt is small. Menorca's isn't. Over 150 million euros in 2012. Something needs to be done about its performance, and despite crowing in the Balearics that a Mallorcan bank, March, is a shareholder and that a leading Mallorcan hotelier, Simón Barceló, is a non-executive director on the new board will mean a defence of Balearic interests, it has to be accepted that shareholders don't deal with altruism, they deal with returns on investment. Barceló's involvement is arguably the more important - as a non-exec, he would doubtless do the defending - but then both he and March are part of a much bigger business, one with all those other airports that make a loss. The Spanish Government, as majority shareholder, would find itself under fire if it were to appear that the Balearics were being favoured at the expense of smallish regional airports on the mainland. This said, the government has stated in the past that airport closure is not on the cards. Well, that remains to be seen, as indeed does the success or not of the whole share offer.
It is now more accurate to talk about Enaire rather than Aena. Since July this publicly owned company has been in charge of the country's civil airports; it currently owns all the Aena shares, for which offers have been received from the private sector for an initial 21%. The remaining 28% which comprise the partial privatisation (49% of shares) are due to be offered next month. Three "core" shareholders have now been confirmed. They are Banca March, Ferrovial, which is involved with the management of several British airports, and the London-based Children's Investment Fund (TCI).
The response to the offer of this 21% shareholding was, at best, not what the government had hoped for. It would seem that the three shareholders were the only applicants. The remaining 28%, thrown open to wider public subscription, may create greater interest, but there are concerns that the lacklustre start to the privatisation process might be repeated.
A problem for Enaire/Aena is that there are so many airports which aren't profitable, and they include Madrid. There are 49 airports in all and only around a fifth of them make a profit, in addition to which there is debt which many of them have. Palma is exceptional in this regard as it carries no debt. Barcelona, on the other hand, has a similar profit level but a massive debt.
The privatisation has not been met with total approval. The CCOO union is against it, as is PSOE, which is supposedly going to attempt to paralyse the sale in Congress (quite how is not clear). The opposition is all about guarantees of jobs, but there should also be a further concern, which is what investment might be forthcoming as a consequence of privatisation. Is the sale simply a way for the government to improve its accounts? But this question aside, Palma, because of its already high performance, might benefit further. As things stand, it already in a sense gets back much of its profit through the state budget allocation. The worry might be all those airports which are a drain and which demand a diversion of investment, though this assumes that they don't get closed, and it has been argued - justifiably - that Spain has way too many airports.
One airport which is a drain is Menorca's. It runs at a substantial loss - nearly 10 million euros in 2012. It would never be closed because, unlike some airports on the mainland, it is essential both for tourists and residents. But its tourism does perhaps help to explain why it does make a loss. Menorca receives half the number of tourists that Ibiza (together with Formentera) does. Ibiza airport makes a profit, not a huge one but it is profit nonetheless and its debt is small. Menorca's isn't. Over 150 million euros in 2012. Something needs to be done about its performance, and despite crowing in the Balearics that a Mallorcan bank, March, is a shareholder and that a leading Mallorcan hotelier, Simón Barceló, is a non-executive director on the new board will mean a defence of Balearic interests, it has to be accepted that shareholders don't deal with altruism, they deal with returns on investment. Barceló's involvement is arguably the more important - as a non-exec, he would doubtless do the defending - but then both he and March are part of a much bigger business, one with all those other airports that make a loss. The Spanish Government, as majority shareholder, would find itself under fire if it were to appear that the Balearics were being favoured at the expense of smallish regional airports on the mainland. This said, the government has stated in the past that airport closure is not on the cards. Well, that remains to be seen, as indeed does the success or not of the whole share offer.
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