AENA is experiencing what the heavens call a boom on the stock market. A surge in share prices. A surge in fares. A surge for Maurici Lucena, who pilots the airport holding company as if it were his own private Airbus. The stock market celebrates with a 2,5% rise that leaves the Ibex 35 looking up in envy. All for a mere 0,68 euros it wants to wring out of every soul who passes through security. Nothing, just a couple of coffees from a vending machine. But, alas, multiplied by the millions of passengers, it adds up to a mountain of money.
The former Socialist congressman and current airport boss has put a 6,5% fare increase on the table. A big deal. It's no joke: this is the first increase since the legal price freeze expired. What's chump change for passengers is gold dust for shareholders. The heavens for which you pay more translate into dividends down here. And that's the trick: the average price per passenger drops to €11,03. It's not the fare of a private jet, but it's more than what a waiter charges for a beer at Barajas Airport.
The CNMC will have to intervene or bless the move. It is chaired by Cani Fernández, who has already proven he's neither the devil of the airlines nor Lucena's guardian angel. Sometimes he splits the baby in half. Solomon. Sabadell has already warned: "the regulator is tending toward a technical tie." Translation: the final blow may not be 6,5%, but it won't be a caress either.
Meanwhile, Maurici gives lessons in corporate geopolitics from his control tower. He talks about international prestige as if talking about Iberian ham, and says this is no time to rest on his laurels. He wants more. Always more. Like a true technocrat of Sánchez's regime, he has known how to forge alliances and show mettle. He made a pact with the Generalitat (Catalan government), he has Luton in his portfolio, and he wants to put the knife to El Prat (El Prat) with "environmental guarantees" (we'll see what that means with planes flying over the protected wildlife of the Llobregat Delta).
But there's one thing he won't let go of even with pliers: the land. The land at Gran Canaria Airport, for example, isn't his. It belongs to the Island Council. Yes, the Island Council. And this, which is first-class transparency, isn't even mentioned to investors with subtitles. In the fine print of his presentations to international funds, the ownership of the land is conspicuously absent. Why is that? Fear that one day they'll be told: this is as far as you go, this is ours, and we want to renegotiate? Or is it simply a self-serving forgetfulness, the kind that always falls out of PowerPoint?
Ryanair, meanwhile, remains resentfully silent. The Irish low-cost carrier is the one that moves the most passengers, but also the one that complains the most when its bottom line is touched. Lucena says they get along well. But that's like saying the bull and the bullfighter respect each other. A half-truth. At the last meeting, Maurici spoke of investments, of the future, of love for airports. He fancies himself a Jules Verne of the air. The truth is that AENA is flying high because tourism is booming. More tourists, more flights, more revenue. And now, more fares. A vicious circle... until inflation comes out.
Lucena knows that what moves in the sky is paid for on the ground. But foreign land, beware. And that's the crack under the runway. Because if one day the Gran Canaria Council gets tired of seeing AENA squeeze the airport without recognizing its ownership of its own square meters, there could be a storm. A legal storm. A town planning storm. A political storm. And then, let's see who raises the 6,5%.
The sky takes its toll, yes. But let's not forget that the land has an owner. And the owner, even if he remains silent, also flies low.
