Aena is aiming to “reconstruct the dense network operated at our airports in 2019” throughout its portfolio.

The organization, which manages Spain’s airports, along with London Luton in the UK and six airports in Brazil, told Routes its “varied and wonderful destinations are ready to continue increasing their connectivity to the world.”

Aena’s CDO and airline market director Ignacio Biosca said that proactive steps to support and promote relationships with airlines have been critical to its recovery.

Biosca said: “We took four main steps: supporting our airline partners in this crisis (reducing guarantees and offering discounts on various areas such as space rentals, etc), maintaining continuous contact with airline representatives (more than 300 meetings between March 20 and September 21), providing dedicated analysis with our data-bases to help the airlines forecast demand patterns and take the best decisions and, finally, adopting a flexible incentive scheme that was adapted to the changing restrictions to foster traffic recovery.

As a result of these initiatives, Spain is the first European country in traffic recovery from January to August 2021, according to Eurocontrol data, added Biosca.