Antonio Pimentel. Chief of Iberia´s Division of Aeropolitical Affairs

Antonio, you´ve played a major role in making these flights to Central America come through. Tell us how this operation has been like.

The process of taking the hub from Miami to Central America has been extremely complex and, I must say, partly dicey, too. We hope the flights will come out right and that´s why we´re doing everything within our reach in Europe and in Spain to bring them off. But the truth is that mounting an operation like this is both exciting and complicated at the same time.

After weighing the different options we had on the table, we finally decided to start making direct flights on a daily basis to Costa Rica, combining three weekday flights to Guatemala and three others to Panama, plus a roundtrip nonstop flight Madrid-San Jose-Madrid. We haven´t stopped our operations in Miami, we´re still there, but we´ve moved the hub out of Miami to Central America.

This has been quite a painful process for some countries where we´ve ceased operations, but that´s what our job is all about, to try to explain to these countries that we won´t forget them, that we continue to put our smart money on them, that we remain committed to those markets, and that we´ve only mounted a new operation in Central America with direct flights that use wide-fuselage jetliners. And even though our aircraft don´t touch down on those points, we keep agreements with local air companies, and Iberia as a trademark will continue having a strong presence where it´s always been.

A we speak, we have a commitment with TACA to have an offer of plane seats for a number of Central American destinations where we´re operating with our own jets. We´ve had to negotiate, but that´s not up to me to decide. I can tell you negotiations have been tough and we´ve been bound to make flight schedules fit in with one another to get the proper connections. We´ve been forced to make things match and revamp some of the old connections we used to have in some airports. We continue to work hard to ease transit for passengers and try to get physically closer to the airports.

Has the political process also been complicated?

The political process has been twice as much complicated. It´s been negotiated at the highest levels, at least the ones I´ve been involved in. You should bear in mind that all Central American nations have appealed to Iberia to use their own airports. But at the end of the day, figures call the shots and we´ve come up with the best operation possible. Counting on the support of all regional governments has been equally tough. The toughest thing of all has not only been to determine where we´re going to operate, because everybody wants to have you home, but also to make the rest of the countries understand that we won´t forget about them, that we´re simply trying to beef up an operation and that we´ll start operating in their airports as soon as we can fly to their countries on wide-fuselage jetliners. Moving the hub from Miami to Central America is part of a strategy designed to provide Latin American capitals with direct flights.

What´s exactly the mission of the division you lead?

My mission is relationships with regional authorities, like the European Commission, with local civil aviation authorities and with other associations in the industry. Any new piece of legislation is assessed by us in collaboration with the different air companies. We contribute to map out the company´s strategy and stand up for it in different international organizations. We don´t have a commercial mission as well, though we do try to make relations with governmental authorities run smoothly, chiefly as far as information and coordination are concerned. That´s more or less what we do with in our division.

In that realm of intergovernmental relations, I assume they´re not solely related to companies, but also to tripartite accords in which the Spanish government and the governments of other nations are involved.

The Spanish government has a multitude of bilateral air agreements with other countries that set up a backdrop for operations of air carriers among different countries. The accords that Iberia has as a service-providing company to third parties are strictly commercial agreements.

In light of the different moves you´re just about to make in Europe, can you give us an estimate of the number of passengers you´re going to bring from Europe to Central America?

We believe we´re going to raise the volume of passengers flown from Europe to Central America. In the case of Guatemala, Costa Rica and Panama, that amount will be in the neighborhood of 150,000 passengers, a figure that´ll get rounded out with several codeshare flights through Miami.

Will you keep on flying to Miami?

Yes, we will keep on flying to Miami. We used to have a couple of daily flights; now we´re going to have only one flight that meets the traffic needs we have there right now.

Will you hold on to codeshare flights with OneWorld and American Airlines?

Yes, through Miami, New York and Chicago.

What´s been your biggest snag in these negotiations?

The biggest difficulty has been the countries where we ceased operations. That´s always a traumatic experience.

que querían que operáramos en sus países y que al final no ha funcionado porque no salían las cuentas.

What will the next negotiation be?

Instead of the next negotiation, I´d rather say the next case I´ll have to deal with, which it´ll probably be some new kind of European guidelines. For instance, the new Guidelines on Loading Denial will go into effect in February, a set of rules that´s already taking a lot of flak from air companies. We´re going to try to restrain it as much as we can because we believe it hurts us badly. This new code does not pay attention to unexpected developments that might occur out of the boundaries of our power and that could cause us to delay or even cancel some flights, things like wicked weather conditions, gridlock in airports, and so on. IATA had filed a lawsuit in a British courthouse that was now handed down to the European Justice Court.

And what about negotiations with airports? Do you have a say in that, too?

My job has nothing to do with negotiations with airports. However, we do have to pay some heed to airports now because some low-cost carriers, that we like calling no-frills companies and that traditionally operate in second-tier airports with certain benefits, like the case of Ryanair at Belgium´s Charleroi Airport, have begun to muscle their way into bigger airports where only network airlines used to operate. These no-frills carries are getting thumbs-up approval in those airports, regardless of the fact that they are indeed trying to reap such benefits as huge discounts and lower airfares out of us.

Companies like ours have been operating in those airports and investing huge resources in their development for a long time. There are people now toying with the possibility of remodeling some of these airports to meet the needs of low-cost companies that operate at much lower airfares, while big-time companies like ours will unfairly continue to defray bigger tariffs.