Spain Freight Transport Report 2007

The airline industry remains at the centre of big changes in Spain. Given the strength of the summer tourism industry, Spanish destinations, perhaps more so than any other in Europe, have experienced the full onset of the budget airline phenomenon. Now competitive pressures have spread to domestic air travel, with a handful of new generation operators, including Spanair, Vueling, and Air Europa all challenging previously dominant Iberia, which has responded by launching Clickair, its own low-cost subsidiary. BMI's Spain Freight Transport Report concludes that the Spanish air freight market will be buoyant, with traffic growing at an annual average of 4.2% per annum in the five years to 2011. Various factors underpin this optimistic projection. Strong growth of the passenger business of course helps boost associated cargo capacity. Spain is an important gateway hub for Europe and Latin America. The Spanish economy will experience some of Europe's fastest growth rates over the next few years. And to some extent it is still in 'catch-up' mode, developing and expanding its infrastructure, and therefore experiencing more rapid rates of growth than the more mature markets such as Germany and France. One of the interesting features of the Spanish freight market is that it is set to continue expanding faster than the economy as a whole, which is unusual for an economy at its stage of development. In many of the OECD countries, freight growth lags behind GDP. But BMI forecasts that total Spanish freight traffic will expand by an average 3.8% per annum over the next five years, ahead of GDP growth of 2.9%. The fastest-growing modes will be sea freight (5.0%), air cargo (4.2%), the dominant road haulage sector (3.8%), and pipeline throughput (3.2%), lifted by booming demand for natural gas. A generally positive operating environment will support these sectors. BMI has rated the Spanish freight industry operating environment with a score of 40 (out of a theoretical maximum of 70), which places it close to the European average.

Our report concludes that the country's freight sector, while beginning to settle down towards more stable and slightly lower growth rates, is nevertheless in good health. BMI sees transport and communications GDP expanding steadily to reach a value of US$111.1bn by 2011, equivalent to 7.1% of GDP (compared to 6.9% in 2005).