Iberia challenges the result of Aena’s handling contest after losing the contract at El Prat and seven other airports. The airline of the IAG group has presented this Friday a claim before the Central Administrative Court of Contractual Resources (TACR) regarding the resolution of the competition for the ground handling contract that was resolved by the airport regulator. The objective of the claim is the repetition of the award process in which, to the detriment of Iberia, two foreign multinationals intervened. Aviapartner (Belgium) and Menzies (Scotland).
The reasons given by Iberia (which, among the large airports, only retains the ‘handling’ in Madrid) in its claim are several. Firstly, the company considers that the legal procedure for processing the file has been violated, which, in its view, leaves Iberia defenseless. Specifically, it defends that “the resolution has not been argued in any way”, that “confidentiality has been alleged to deny Iberia access to sufficient information to know the motivation for the scores” and that, furthermore, “the legal deadlines related to the delivery of the file.”
Iberia also denounces the “little information” to which the company has had access, which, it argues, “reveals obvious irregularities that have an impact on the scores.” “Essential issues such as, for example, the coherence between the business plan and the technical offer have not been analyzed,” adds the Spanish airline’s resource.
Given this argument, Iberia requests the TACR to suspend the award until the claim is resolved. If the court did not make this decision, Iberia considers that “irreparable harm would be generated for both the public service and the affected workers and Iberia.”
In addition, the airline claims the nullity of the awards of lots: 2 (Barcelona), 3 (Palma de Mallorca), 4 (Málaga), 5 (Alicante), 6 (Las Palmas de Gran Canaria), 7 (Tenerife South) , 8 (Valencia), 9 (Ibiza), 11 (Arrecife-Lanzarote), 12 (Bilbao) and 14 (Fuerteventura).
Finally, Iberia requires the repetition of the bid evaluation process to achieve a reasoned resolution of the scores accompanied by a technical report that justifies their assignment.