The Cantabrian government has shamed Iberia for what happened last Saturday, when the company cancelled the flight from Madrid to Santander and the corresponding return to the capital, from where the plane scheduled for these connections was taking off, but to go to Barcelona to pick him up at Athletic Club de Bilbao and take him to Vitoria after the match played with Barça.
Something “clearly unacceptable”, reproached the general director of Tourism, Gustavo Cubero, to the airline, in a letter in which he warns that this situation “harms” the relations between the executive and the company and, also, to the “image” that Cantabria has of the latter.
This is what Cubero warns in the letter sent this afternoon by email to several representatives of Iberia, including the director of alliances and strategic agreements of Iberia, Víctor Moneo, and in which he asks for “a response that helps, if necessary” to understand this situation. In the letter consulted by this agency, the head of Tourism first explains the situation that was “once again suffered” at the Seve Ballesteros airport, on August 24 and with the last-minute connections with Madrid.
Thus, he details that the Iberia flight that was to take off from Barajas at 7:50 p.m. was canceled, “giving passengers the only option of making the trip by bus”: they arrived in Santander at 3:50 a.m. . Therefore, the trip in the opposite direction was also canceled, affecting not only passengers returning to Madrid, but also several international connections.
However – Cubero contrasts – the travelers who flew from the Spanish capital to Porto (19:40), Toulouse (19:40), Frankfurt (19:45), Alicante (19:45), Santiago de Compostela (19:50), Almería (19:50), Munich (20:05), Pamplona (20:25) -whose road distance to Madrid is “similar” to that from Santander-, Bologna (21:20), Marseille (21:35) or Lyon (22:05) have not suffered the “dissolution” that occurred with the journey to Cantabria, and this “unfortunately shows a lack of sensitivity and empathy in the relations” that the regional government and the Iberian Peninsula have maintained “for twelve years”.
“As if all this were not enough – which it is not -“, the tourism director continues in the email, “the plane scheduled for this operation, EC-MLN, took off from Madrid at 9:10 p.m. to go to Barcelona to pick up Athletic Club de Bilbao and take it to Vitoria airport, where it landed at 11:58 p.m., which is clearly unacceptable.
After referring to the information published in the press about the cancellation and the damage caused to the ticket, he recalls that it is something that “has already happened on previous” occasions: the last one, “to the benefit of the passengers of a Madrid-Vigo to the detriment of a Madrid-Santander. “Beyond our different criteria for improving the route with Madrid and the commitment we have made to the Iberian Peninsula, this situation harms not only our relations but also the image that Cantabria has of your company”, concludes Gustavo Cubero.
