Flight Development Fund
The Canary Islands Government, under its tourism policy, supports the Canary Islands tourism sector taking into account the transversality of its value chain, which requires the implementation of associated and interrelated measures due to the impact of tourism on the region’s other economic sectors. From this perspective, Action 3 of the Canary Islands Tourism Plan refers to the full development of the Flight Fund to consolidate and extend air connectivity with Europe and the rest of the world.
The present procedure is part of the “Flight Development Programme in the territory of the Canary Islands Outermost Region for 2013-2026”, and comprises the granting of incentives to airlines from the Flight Development Fund (FDF) created for this purpose. The Flight Development Fund is a programme intended to support the development of the tourism sector in the Canary Islands, encouraging job creation and indirectly supporting the development of other economic sectors in the region.
This programme has been declared compatible with the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union under the terms of Article 107, section 3(c) by virtue of European Commission Decision C(2014) 2167 final of 9 April 2014, European Commission Decision C(2017) 6546 final of 22 September 2017, and European Commission Decision C(2022) 583 final of 28 January 2022, as it complies with the requirements laid down in the Guidelines on State aid to airports and airlines, which entered into force on 4 April 2014[1] (hereinafter The Guidelines).
The procedure to be followed will be public and open to all, for the purpose of selecting beneficiaries who are eligible to receive this incentive in accordance with the governing Terms or general conditions. A Call for Applications for each new route will be published. The list of Calls for Applications indicated below includes links to the page of each Call, where the corresponding information and documentation is available.
CALL FOR APPLICATIONS FOR GRANTS TO RECOVER AIR CAPACITY IN LA PALMA ISLAND (2022)
Whereas the corporate purpose of Promotur Turismo Canarias S.A is activities associated with promoting and encouraging Canary Islands tourism products and services and enhancing tourism in the region, this public company is responsible for the present Call for applications which, on this occasion, is intended to grant incentives for the development of new direct, regular air routes to connect the island of La Palma with specific airports in European countries in order to boost the air connectivity that was reduced by the effects of the volcanic eruption and because the island of La Palma is not a provincial capital, factors that accentuate the limitations of the Canary Islands as an outermost region.
The Call for applications is established in the framework of the aforementioned initiative “Flight Development Programme in the Territory of the Canary Islands Outermost Region for 2013-2026”, which Promotur Turismo Canarias S.A is authorised to manage and process by virtue of section 2.8 of European Commission Decision C(2014) 2167 final of 9 April 2014 and, recently, under section 2.1 of European Commission Decision C(2022) 583 final of 11 March 2022; it is governed by the Terms approved for the granting of incentives for the start-up of new direct air routes from Canary Islands airports.
This call is financed by Order received from the Ministry of Tourism, Industry and Commerce, within the framework of the State aid for the financing of actions in the field of tourism promotion and support for small and medium-sized enterprises on the island of La Palma (issued from Royal Decree 1112/2021, of December 17), one of whose actions to be funded is precisely the implementation of a incentives’ line for improving La Palma’s connectivity by air with international airports; without prejudice to other Orders by which the object of these incentives could be financed during the period of their duration.
The Notice of Call for applications includes the list of new air routes proposed, with their origin at La Palma Airport (SPC), the conditions governing the granting of the incentive, and the deadline for submitting the mandatory documents to take part in this Call for applications, in addition to the maximum budget established and the assessment criteria and their weightings for the selection of the best proposed air route sought.
Full details here:
- Publication in the OJEU (Official Journal of the European Union): https://ted.europa.eu/udl?uri=TED:NOTICE:549033-2022:TEXT:ES:HTML
- On this website: https://turismodeislascanarias.com/en/flight-development-fund/
