Correos (Spain’s Postal Service) has broken its alliance with the airline Iberojet owned by Ávoris group, one year after launching the Correos Cargo project, dedicated to the transport of merchandise and parcels. Announced in January 2022, the company intended to launch a new transport service “created to strengthen the Asia – Europe – Latin America Axis”, starting with the route between Madrid and Hong Kong. Specifically, the communicated plan included that Iberojet (formerly Evelop) was going to allocate two of its Airbus A330-200 to this activity, with an investment by Correos that did not come to light as the company framed it “in a commercial agreement”, and not having launched a public tender.
However, the project has not gone as planned. Correos sent a burofax to Iberojet last December announcing that they closed the operation, once the year of their “pilot project” was over. “The contract did not benefit Correos at all, because all the obligations are acquired by the public company,” summarize sources consulted. In other words, Correos was responsible for all operating expenses, including the transformation of the aircraft so that it could be dedicated to transporting cargo and not passengers. The expected benefits have turned, for the moment, into “onerous losses”, they explain.
The “Milana Bonita” aircraft, as Correos called the imposing yellow plane, did not begin its commercial flights until May 2022, despite the fact that the agreement had been announced five months earlier. In fact, as this newspaper reported, the president of Correos came to admit to those in charge of offices throughout the country that the company showed the plane “out of necessity” and at the request of Iberojet, despite the fact that “it was not the time to present it”. In March 2021, SEPI (the State Industrial Holding Company) rescued Ávoris Corporación Empresarial with 320 million euros, through a participatory loan of 163.2 million euros and an ordinary loan of 156.8 million euros, repayable within a maximum period of six years. . Last December, Ávoris returned the 320 million in advance.
Copyright Photo: Javier Rodriguez. Airbus A330-300 EC-LXA is now parked at Palma de Mallorca airport devoid of any Correos decals.
Javier Rodriguez reporting from Spain.