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THE owners of Iberia and British Airways have been told they would be ‘plane’ crazy to buy Mallorca-based Air Europa, Spain’s third-largest airline. Instead, analysts at Barclays Bank advise them to forget takeover plans and let the company ‘fail and go under’.

The collapse of the airline would potentially see the loss of 6,000 jobs, including an unknown number at its Palma HQ.

The recommendation came in a report to the chiefs of International Airlines Group (IAG).

Debt

The report, which also slams IAG's ‘lack of strategic clarity’, might ruffle feathers among IAG executives for an acquisition that has been in the pipeline since 2019.

They are thought to view Air Europa as a wise purchase as part of a strategy to strengthen Iberia in the Madrid Barajas hub. But Barclay's report highlights Air Europa's ‘financial problems’ and warns that its high debt levels would send the massive airline group, which also owns Aer Lingus and Vueling, further into the red.

A campaigning, community newspaper, the Olive Press represents the huge expatriate community in Spain with an estimated readership, including the websites, of more than two million people a month.

Voted top expat paper in Spain OPINION

Shame or glory

THE bullfighting season is getting into full swing again. And with it comes the annual debate of its rights and wrongs.

To the critics, it’s a shameful blood sport, bringing pain and suffering to innocent animals, while to its aficionados, it’s a glorious cultural symbol, a bridge to our past and almost unique to the world.

Nowhere has this debate raged more than in Mallorca, where it has been a hot topic in politics for many years. Indeed the sport was effectively banned on the island back in 2017. The Baleraes introduced a law that made it illegal to mistreat, injure or kill cattle and declared a maximum of three bulls per show.

It also declared that bulls could not be in the ring for more than 10 minutes each.

All three tenets were later declared unconstitutional in Spain’s Supreme Court, with far-right party Vox hailing the reintroduction of corridas to Mallorca as ‘returning freedoms lost’.

Since then protests against bullfighting on the island have been regular, and the arguments for and against continue.

Whichever side of the debate you fall on (and we know most of you are anti’s), there is little doubt the world of the corrida is very much part of the fabric of Spain’s identity.

Some of the country’s most impressive architecture is embodied in the magnificent bull rings, most dating back hundreds of years.

Through the centuries dashing matadors - and often their female admirers - have featured in the art and literature of Spanish culture.

Even the posters for bullfighters are iconic works of art, with even British architect Lord Norman Foster now designing them.

But the question is: Does the corrida belong in the past or does it have a future?

While we don’t demand its end, we don’t expect it to last.

PUBLISHER / EDITOR

Jon Clarke, jon@theolivepress.es

Dilip Kuner dilip@theolivepress.es

Anthony Piovesan anthony@theolivepress.es

Jo Chipchase jo@theolivepress.es

John Culatto

ADMIN Sandra Aviles Diaz (+34) 951 273 575 admin@ theolivepress.es