Puente moves €1.03bn in the Balearics mid-election campaign

Spain's transport minister, Óscar Puente, has announced a €1.03 billion investment across Palma, Ibiza and Menorca airports. He did it while his government colleague, tourism state secretary Rosario Sánchez, is competing to lead the Balearic Islands in the upcoming regional election. According to Preferente, the announcement has rattled Sánchez's campaign team, which has spent months calling for limits on visitor arrivals to the islands.

The irony is sharp: a ministry from the same party is celebrating a wave of millions to expand air capacity right when the dominant local message is that the Balearics are already saturated. In my view, Puente did nothing unusual. He filled his role as transport minister, which is to think about connectivity and about the 15 million-plus passengers those airports move every summer.

The detail that matters for the industry is different. If Aena deploys that money into terminals, runways and services, arrival capacity to the islands grows. That gives breathing room to airlines fighting for slots in peak season and to hoteliers chasing shoulder-season demand. Sánchez is left to explain her tourism thesis without giving up the infrastructure that underpins it.