Flying high despite turbulence, budget airline opens new routes

WITH toothpaste advert smiles it is announced that low cost airline Iberia Express have taken to the skies.

The routes are Madrid, Alicante, Seville and Palma de Mallorca. There has been some turbulence.

Iberia Airline’s union SEPLA held several strikes to complain that the new airline breaches a collective agreement.

The airline had to do something; it lost €61 million operating losses last year.

With competition being what it is the airline was in freefall. The routes it has in mind from May are Naples, Dublin, Mikonis and Riga.

Thank goodness for the latter.

Latvia has been too protective about its over priced under-scheduled Baltic Air.

As a consequence, Riga in Latvia could be a major central Baltic States hub.

We need those Latvians, Estonians and Lithuanian, whose economies are doing better than Spain’s.

Set a thief to catch a thief?

Set a thief to catch a thief is a maxim that has fallen out of use.

It is about to be revised with news that Spanish Finance Minister Cristobal Montoro appointed Pilar Valiente as number two in the tax fraud investigations division at the internal revenue agency (AEAT) in February. She did what?

Pilar Valiente 11 years ago was forced to resign her post as chairwoman of Spain’s stock market watchdog authority CNMV.

This occurred after she had been caught up in the entrails of a massive fraud scandal involving the devious and morally reprehensible brokerage firm, Gescartera.