This was announced on Thursday by the regional minister for Housing, Public Works, Logistics and Territorial Cohesion, Octavio López, and the director general of Transport, David Sánchez Fraile, during the presentation of the tender results. The latter said 25 bids had been received from six airlines for 19 of the 29 lots put out to tender, covering approximately 70% of the procurement process. "Despite this situation, in our view the tender has been a success," Sánchez Fraile said, noting that the expansion will increase the number of annual flights from the current 3,900 to around 6,000, a rise of 55%, and take annual passenger numbers above one million, compared with approximately 675,000 currently.
THE 10 DESTINATIONS FROM ZARAGOZA AIRPORT THAT RECEIVED NO BIDS
Paris, Venice, Tangier, Warsaw, the southern Italy route, Sofia, Pisa, Manchester, Prague and the Switzerland route are the 10 lots for which no airline submitted a bid. In the case of southern Italy, the tender included connections to Naples and Palermo, while the Switzerland route would have covered Basel, Zurich or Geneva. These routes were among the tender's priorities and, for now, have no airline interested in operating them. The absence of Paris and Venice is particularly notable, as both are highly attractive tourist destinations, while Prague and Manchester have also failed to attract the expected interest from operators.
However, the Aragonese government insists that these 10 unawarded lots do not mean the routes have been definitively ruled out. "That does not mean they have been discarded or that they will not operate in 2027," David Sánchez Fraile said. The director general explained that the destinations had been selected because they were considered strategic priorities and that airlines had apparently shown interest in them, but ultimately had reservations when it came time to submit bids. The Government of Aragon will analyze the situation in an attempt to restore these connections in a second phase.
In this regard, Sánchez Fraile recalled that the aviation sector is facing an especially complex situation, shaped by the international geopolitical climate, inflation and rising fuel costs, with the price of kerosene doubling over the past year. He also warned that many airlines expect to reduce their activity in 2027, making it more difficult to open new routes. Despite this, he insisted that the goal remains to reach the 31 destinations initially planned. To achieve this, the regional government is considering negotiated procedures without publication or launching a new tender with changes to the destinations and the terms of the specifications. "We are already working on a second phase with an unwaivable objective: to ensure that those 31 destinations are operated as soon as possible," he said. Around three million euros plus VAT remain available for this new stage.
THE DESTINATIONS THAT DID RECEIVE BIDS FOR FLIGHTS FROM ZARAGOZA IN 2027
While 10 routes received no bids, the other 19 lots attracted offers from airlines including Air Horizont, Binter, Ryanair, Wizz Air, Volotea and Vueling. Domestically, all the destinations included in the tender attracted interest from airlines. Under the proposed award, Vueling would operate Alicante and Ibiza, Wizz Air Santiago de Compostela, Air Horizont Menorca, and Binter the connections to Gran Canaria and Tenerife. Palma de Mallorca would be added to these routes; it already has a connection from Zaragoza and was not part of this tender.
As for international flights, Ryanair is the proposed operator for Brussels, Bergamo, Marrakech, London, Krakow, Düsseldorf, Bratislava and Porto. Wizz Air, meanwhile, is the proposed awardee for Budapest, Milan, Rome, Bucharest, Cluj-Napoca and Malaga, the latter being a domestic connection. The route with the highest number of annual flights offered is the Canary Islands service, with 832 operations between Gran Canaria and Tenerife. London and Bergamo follow, with 416 annual flights each, while Brussels, Milan, Rome, Marrakech, Bucharest and Cluj-Napoca are scheduled to have 312 operations per destination.
The process, however, has not yet concluded. Following the contracting committee meeting held on Thursday, the companies proposed as awardees must prove their financial standing, make the corresponding deposits and submit the required guarantees. Once these procedures are completed, the contracts are expected to be awarded in November and signed in December, with the aim of starting the connections in April 2027. In parallel, the Government of Aragon and Zaragoza City Council will continue working with airlines to restore the destinations that received no bids. As Octavio López announced, "we are now opening a second round involving a direct negotiated procedure with some airlines and, later on, a second tender that we will launch to provide Zaragoza Airport with more strategic destinations."
