More than a year after the historic tests in the waters of Ibiza, which raised hopes of the return of a seaplane service to the island of Ibiza, the expectation of a route connecting the ports of the Balearic Islands by air seems to have been almost completely diluted.
“There has been no interest from the Balearic administration or the Port Authority, and we are negotiating with other ports on the mainland,” Antoni Jiménez, the Balearic delegate of Isla Air Express, the company that seeks to offer the service of flights between ports, explained to La Voz de Ibiza. In fact, he said that “they are pending tests in other ports in Spain”.
Although he did not want to specify which ones, Jiménez himself, in an interview granted in July to Mallorca Diario, had said that they had initiated conversations to fly from Valencia and from Barcelona.
“We do not rule out operating in the Balearic Islands, but given the enthusiasm here, we are looking for other alternatives,” he insisted.
According to Jiménez, the company has requested meetings with the Balearic administration and the Balearic Port Authority (APB). In both cases, he says, they had no response to advance the project or to jointly evaluate the results of the tests carried out.
Jiménez also did not specify to this media which is the main interlocutor that the company has in the Govern. La Voz de Ibiza has consulted the Consellería del Mar y del Ciclo del Agua, which has denied having contacts with the company. The APB has not confirmed contacts with Isla Air Express in recent months.
Regulations
Jiménez had pointed out almost a year ago to La Voz de Ibiza that everything depended on the State, since, for the company to operate, it is required that “the Government approves a mechanism for the management of hydrosurfaces, a legislation that does not yet exist in Spain”.
In that line, Isla Air Express had collaborated with the State Agency for Aviation Safety (AESA) in a project that “contemplates acceptable means of compliance of design and operation of hydrosurfaces and incorporates comments resulting from a working group with the sector,” as explained from AESA to La Voz de Ibiza.
This project was submitted in November 2024 to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGAC), and two months later it was in the study phase. AESA has not yet specified, when asked by La Voz de Ibiza, what is the current status of the project.
Although the regulatory limitation is for the whole of Spain, Jiménez said that, in the absence of a state regulation, “there are other frameworks for action” that are being evaluated with the autonomous administrations of the peninsula.
Tests
The seaplane trial was conducted in November 2024. An aircraft arrived from Palma to the IGY Marina. It was scheduled to make three passenger flights departing from Ibiza, but made only one, and with no passengers on board. The easterly wind, they noted, forced this precaution.
The company considered that the tests were satisfactory, although it admitted that it would have to look for another location from which to operate in Ibiza (which would need the authorization of the APB).
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The easterly wind, the black point of the seaplane test in Ibiza
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Exclusive images of the Isla Air Express seaplane splashdown in Ibiza
The company proposed, as announced last year, to link the different islands in a fast and agile way, without the need for trips to the airport and long boardings.
The original project began in 2018 and demanded an investment of €7 million in equipment and testing. “These tests have demanded an important investment. And the APB has not answered us to review the results,” Jiménez complained.
