Juan Alberto Martin Mora, Assistant Director of Iberia Alliances

Juan Alberto Martin Mora
Assistant Director of Iberia Alliances
By Jose Carlos de Santiago

Iberia, the leading airline in terms of flights between Europe and Latin America, increases its routes, opens new destinations in other continents, tries its wings at the low-cost market and joins alliances that ramp up its global outreach. Mr. Martin speaks with us about these and other topics.

Juan Alberto, I would like you to tell us about your work after the new alliances or mergers between Iberia and British Airways, American Airlines...
Fortunately, I’ve had the opportunity of changing my duties due to the merger between Iberia and British Airways to make up the IAG Holding. My job currently has a more strategic character, still maintaining our support to the commercial element.

Previously, as the responsible for intercontinental routes uptick, I was in charge of the development, design and planning of routes for Iberia, and now I’m focused on topics related to strategy definition and development of alliances linked to global relations with other airlines, as well as the negotiation of air bilateral and obtaining traffic rights in order to take Iberia’s operation to a world level.

Among the new destinations, Iberia continues betting on Latin America and the Caribbean. Is there going to be a new strategy aimed at the English-speaking Caribbean and the Spanish-speaking Caribbean in terms of what British did and what Iberia can do now?
One of the characteristics of our merge is that we’ll be working with both trademarks, as British and Iberia brands count on strategic weight in many markets worldwide.

In the case of flights between Latin America and Europe, Iberia is the leading company in that market. By adding British, we are strengthening that position and any other future project will be managed by both companies. We believe that British Airways should gain momentum in Latin America, just as we have to in other regions of the world.

As for the English-speaking Caribbean, British Airways is to continue operating those markets and Iberia will be focused in those where it has traditionally been present. However, that doesn’t mean that we won’t analyze in the future how Iberia can fly to destinations traditionally operated by British Airways and vice versa.

Within the Spanish market, there are companies such as Spanair that are currently facing a complicated situation. How do you see the future of aviation in Spain?
The Spanish market’s economic conditions for next year, evolution of rival companies and price of fuel are going to be determining elements, and that’s what will define the number of airlines operating in Spain in upcoming years.

We believe that a restructuration is to be carried out, as well as a rationalization of air industry in Spain and most of Europe. Therefore, we’ll be paying attention to possible opportunities and threats.

Could the low cost and the entry of Iberia in that segment be the element to trigger sales in other companies?
No. The announcement related to the creation of Iberia’s new company –Iberia Express– is a response to the current conditions of Iberia’s market so as to offer customers a more efficient model of operation.

And I’m sure that the rest of companies in Spain are doing the same; analyzing the situation within the market and evaluating different elements and strategies to be developed.

Do you have any measure such as special fares, shared space or formalities speeding up for passengers in airports, especially Madrid’s, that fly to Latin America?
Iberia has been working for a long time in order to develop measures aimed at providing every kind of customer the best possible value proposal. We know that we have to improve certain aspects and we’re working on it. And we must continue betting on the differentiation of our services and products. We’re convinced that this is the right way to be followed and we’ll continue implementing new changes.

At Madrid’s airport, where we are the main operator and, along with our associated companies, we’re betting on the development of Madrid hub and its positioning as one of the worldwide main airports.
    
What are the destinations in Latin America and the Caribbean to be growing up?
Now that we have practically covered the Latin American market, we continue exploring new opportunities. We are interested in developing Brazil, gaining access to other cities in Colombia, beyond Bogota, and the same for Mexico.

We are interesting in developing the US market and, of course, the African market, which is very important for us. We inaugurated this month Luanda route, in Angola, where we have pretty good expectations. And for 2012, we’re looking forward to adding new destinations to our flight network in Africa.

Are you planning to open any other route to the Dominican Republic or Cuba?
Not in short term. We already count on one daily flight to both countries, specifically Santo Domingo and Havana, and what we’re going to do is increasing seat offers for both destinations.

We are carrying out a reconfiguration process of some A340-300 airplanes, which had 254 seats and now count on 289, we’re going to reduce the number of seats in Business class, always preserving the quality of our Business-plus product, so as to increase the plane’s total capacity, also improving comfort in tourist class. This proposal seems to be the best solution for some markets with certain characteristics in terms of traffic nature and composition.

Anyway, we continue analyzing opportunities in both countries in order to operate non-stop flights to any other city, and we are pretty sure that that’s going to happen in the short term.