The reconfiguration of maritime transport of goods and passengers between the Peninsula and the Canary archipelago has entered a phase of maximum corporate and institutional tension. The public service obligation (OSP) contract regulating the strategic Cádiz-Canary Islands route expires on June 30, 2026, without the Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility having formalized the awarding of the new public tender for the period from July 2026 to December 2028. This administrative paralysis coincides with the entry of Baleària into the maritime market of the islands, a move that has accelerated operational frictions at key ports in the eastern province. The regulatory uncertainty has particularly severely impacted Fuerteventura, where the People’s Party has denounced the systematic cancellation of passenger tickets and rolling cargo for next August. Port sector operators attribute these logistical dysfunctions to the legal vacuum that will be created as of July 1, a situation that forces shipping companies to restructure their summer schedules due to the lack of legal guarantees in state compensations, estimated at 3.1 million euros annually. Puerto del Rosario faces the risk of losing direct connectivity, with part of the essential supply flows being diverted to the neighboring island of Lanzarote. The corporate shift in Atlantic traffic is progressing in parallel with the paralysis of the Ministry of Transport. The National Commission on Markets and Competition (CNMC) has authorized in the second phase the acquisition of Armas Trasmediterránea’s Canary assets by Baleària. The effectiveness of this corporate operation, which is pending final approval from the Ministry of Economy, imposes strict conditions on the shipping company headed by Adolfo Utor, obligating it to maintain frequencies above the minimums set by the state for three years and to reactivate the inter-island route Morro Jable-Las Palmas. The transition of assets between Armas and Baleària, combined with the delay in the OSP tender, threatens the stability of a maritime line that operates as a lifeline for the supply of perishable products, industrial components, and automotive supplies in the non-capital islands. While the Council of Ministers evaluates the activation of an emergency extension or a direct award to avoid shortages, the business community of Fuerteventura warns of the loss of competitiveness that would result from being sidelined from the Cádiz-Las Palmas-Tenerife logistical corridor during the peak summer tourist campaign. The overlap of these three regulatory and industrial processes creates an unprecedented logistical bottleneck that affects the commercial decision-making of shipping companies. The current OSP establishes minimum frequencies and capacities aimed at neutralizing the additional costs of the ultra-periphery, ensuring that the cost of the shopping basket in the non-capital islands does not skyrocket due to double insularity. The administrative delay from the state forces current operators, who employ next-generation mixed vessels like the Ciudad de Valencia, to block the advance sale of holds and tickets for the second half of the year. Baleària’s entry into the archipelago, conditioned by the CNMC on the dissolution of previous alliances in the Huelva-Canary Islands corridor, seeks to invigorate a market that has historically suffered from a high concentration of operators. However, the effectiveness of private competition requires an institutional certainty framework that defines the rules of the game before the summer campaign. Fuerteventura, whose economy heavily relies on the transit of rolling goods and weekly hotel supplies, acts as the thermometer of a planning crisis that threatens to collapse the distribution channels of Puerto del Rosario, consolidating the relocation of services towards larger-scale nodes. The paralysis in the offices of Madrid places local logistics corporations in a complex operational situation. Private investment plans for the modernization of cargo holds and the introduction of sustainable fuels in the Atlantic are frozen, awaiting a defined concession framework. If the Ministry of Transport does not execute an immediate resolution through a process of urgency or a direct allocation of state lines, the archipelago is heading towards a scenario of logistical fragmentation in which the economies of scale of Gran Canaria and Tenerife will absorb the few guaranteed return flows, widening the structural gap in prices and connectivity that has historically penalized the citizens and businesses of the smaller islands of the autonomous territory.
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