The Spanish state has ring-fenced a budget allocation of €4,434,732 to subsidise maritime trips made by the Armed Forces’ own personnel across the national territory. The measure was made official by the Ministry of Defence and will be channelled to Naviera Armas (Baleària), establishing a collaboration framework intended to ease the economic cost arising from the mandatory geographical mobility faced by members of the Army, Navy, Air and Space Force, as well as by personnel in the reserve or in training.
The public funding for the agreement will be structured linearly over four financial years, with a precise annual credit of €1,108,683 for the period from 2026 to 2029. These resources, charged to the budget application of the department led by the personnel area, will subsidise both the transport of service members and their privately owned vehicles on all regular routes operated by the Canary Island shipping company, covering interinsular connections and routes linking the islands, Ceuta and Melilla with the mainland.
On the commercial front, the alliance sets a constant 50% discount on the private-vehicle ticket for military personnel. For passenger fares, discounts on the commercial rate will range from 10% to 50%, depending on whether the service member can prove island residency or family-large status, while always adhering to the cap of up to 85% on the maximum cumulative state subsidy imposed by current budget legislation.
The agreement, signed by the Defence Director General for Personnel, José Ramón Velón Ororbia, and the authorised representative of Naviera Armas, Ricardo Climent Escriche, will remain in force until 30 November 2029. The text also includes a clause allowing the budget ceiling to be increased by up to an additional 20% on the initial €4.4 million, subject to prior authorisation from the Treasury, if demand for discounted passenger tickets by the troops exceeds the planned operational estimates.
The news item titled ‘MoD injects €4.4 million into Baleària for military staff travel in the Canaries’ was first published on canarymaritime.com.
