Juan Antonio Segura Vizcaino, PSOE Andalucian Spokesman has announced that the Almeria to Seville air bridge could be operation by 2009, with 60,000 passengers a year. It is expected to take 50 minutes (only takes 65 to Madrid or 130 to London; what sort of planes are they expecting to use?).
One million euros has been allocated to start this up, together with another million euros put aside in case the airline makes a loss on this route. Although the money has been set aside in the budget, it require EU permission to concede the line, so that is the last hurdle to vault before being able to fly from Almeria to Seville.
The idea is to use taxes to pay for the line until the new AVE lines are built (if you know when this will be, please tell both me and the politicians), as Almeria is “a long way away from Seville and this is necessary to keep Andalucia competitive”. It currently takes 5-6 hours to drive to Seville.
And don’t forget that Flysur, our Cordoba to godforsaken places in Spain airline, went bankrupt after only a month (as the government kept moving the control tower from landing strip to landing strip without prior notice).
Guess what? I’m naming this my Biggest waste of money of the week.