News APB | Ports de Balears

The APB and the Majorca Food Bank Foundation sign a cooperation agreement

18/09/2014

This morning, the Port Authority of the Balearic Islands (APB) and the Majorca Food Bank Foundation signed a cooperation agreement aimed at increasing awareness among the general public, institutions, and organisations to promote campaigns to collect food and subsequently donate it to those in need. The agreement was signed by the APB Chairman, Alberto Pons, and the Chairman of the Majorca Food Bank Foundation, José Falcó, at the APB´s offices in the Port of Palma. The idea for the project came from the APB’s employees at the Port of Palma, whom Pons thanked for their commitment to cooperation. The APB Chairman also stated his intention to promote the initiative among the port community, and expressed the hope that “these campaigns to combat hunger will be sporadic, and will not become a cyclical issue”. Likewise, the Chairman of the Majorca Food Bank Foundation, José Falcó, thanked the APB’s “active contribution” in combating a problem suffered by many people on the island.

The APB promotes Balearic Island ports at Seatrade Med Cruise in Barcelona

16/09/2014

A delegation from the Port Authority of the Balearic Islands (APB) is taking part in the Seatrade Med Cruise annual cruise convention, which is being held in Barcelona from 14th to 18th September. The APB delegation, led by its Chairman, Alberto Pons, is in Barcelona to attend several meetings with representatives of the world’s main shipping companies with a view to strengthening the trust these companies have placed in the islands’ public ports over the next few years. The delegation’s priority is to promote the ports of Mahon and Alcudia, as these two destinations have excellent potential for small and medium-sized cruise ships. 2015 is set to be a great season for the APB’s ports, which are scheduled to welcome two million passengers. The Port of Palma expects to beat all its previous records, in a season marked by regular calls of seven cruise ships over 300 metres long, including the Allure of the Seas, the world’s largest cruise ship.

The APB marks the tenth anniversary of the Portopí lighthouse’s Maritime Signalling Exhibition

02/09/2014

The Port Authority of the Balearic Islands (APB) has today presented the events scheduled to mark the tenth anniversary of the opening of the Portopí lighthouse’s Maritime Signalling Exhibition, which brings together two decades of work carried out by navigational aid experts in the collection, restoration, and conservation of diverse material, documents, and equipment related to maritime signalling and lighthouses on the Balearic Islands. To celebrate the first ten years of this unique exhibition, the Port of Palma will be opening the West Breakwater access to the Portopí lighthouse to the general public on 13th and 14th September. The exhibition will be open on Saturday 13th from 10.30 to 14.00, and 17.00 to 20.00. Opening hours on Sunday 14th will be from 10.30 to 14.00. There will also be guided tours at 11.00, 13.00, and 18.30. Activities for children have been scheduled, such as popular and group games, workshops to play a bottle top game, tie sailor knots, make flags, and build lighthouses. These activities have been designed to let children discover and enjoy the fascinating world of lighthouses and “feel the magic inside them", in the words of the APB Chairman, Alberto Pons, in his presentation of the Open Days. Portopí lighthouse The Portopí lighthouse, which has been standing for seven centuries and is the world’s third oldest working lighthouse, has played host to a permanent and unique exhibition of maritime signals since 2004. The exhibition can be visited on Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings by appointment. For further information, visit the www.farsdebalears.com website. This portal gives information about the salient aspects of Balearic Islands’ lighthouses, such as historic documents from their archives, lenses, lanterns, 360º images of their location, interviews with former lighthouse keepers, and a virtual visit around the Portopí exhibition, which is the centre point of the Open Days on 13th and 14th September.

APB offers maximum rebates to cruise ships calling at the ports of Maó and Alcudia

28/08/2014

The APB, in its 2015 Business Plan, which has been agreed with the State-owned Ports Body, has adopted the maximum rebate legally permitted for cruise ships calling at the ports of Maó and Alcudia, in order to promote cruise traffic and contribute to the economic and social development of these islands. Accordingly, as of the first of January 2015, cruise ships calling at these two ports will benefit from a 40% rebate on both the vessel and passenger charges. According to the APB Chairman, Alberto Pons, this measure responds to the authority´s commitment to promote these two destinations, given the tourism and logistics opportunities they offer. “We have to make sure that shipping companies don’t object to working with us for economic reasons”, said Pons, who was confident that these companies would take into account the efforts made by the APB in terms of charge rebates for 2015. Reduced charges With the same objective in mind, the APB has also decided to apply a 20% rebate on the vessel, passenger, and goods charges for regular goods and passenger traffic at the Port of Maó in 2015. According to the APB, maritime traffic to and from the Minorcan port is highly strategic and it has included this rebate to make it more competitive. In 2015, the APB will be maintaining the reductions it has already applied this year at all the public interest ports it manages, consisting of a 30% rebate on the passenger charge, and a 10% rebate on the goods charge, aimed at boosting economic activity on the islands. In addition, the APB applies the maximum rebate legally permitted as an island group on charges for shipping services to and from other ports outside the archipelago. These reductions consist of a 40% rebate on the vessel and goods charges, a 45% rebate on the passenger charge, and a 60% rebate for vehicles transported as goods. All these measures will be presented to the APB’s Board of Directors for endorsement, and their subsequent approval in the 2015 General State Budget Law.

Over two million cruise passengers to call at Balearic Islands’ ports in 2015

27/08/2014

The Port Authority of the Balearic Islands (APB) is getting ready for the best cruise season in its history in 2015, which will see it welcoming over two million passengers in just one year. The Port of Palma is the driving force behind the upturn in figures with 1.8 million passengers calling at the Majorcan enclave next year, thus representing an increase of half a million passengers on the forecast for 2014. According to the APB Chairman, Alberto Pons, these figures are very positive because they show the efforts made “to encourage the major shipping companies to continue using Palma as a destination”.This is borne out by forecasts which indicate that around 600 cruises will be calling at the Port of Palma next year. Thus, the port will beat its own record, set in 2011, in which it registered 1.4 million passengers and 534 calls in just one year. The figures recorded in 2011 were distorted by the events of the Arab Spring, which caused over 50 cruise ships to be diverted to the Port of Palma from the north of Africa at the last minute.The highlights of the 2015 season include 23 visits of the Allure of the Seas, the largest cruise ship in the world, which is 361 metres long and has a capacity for over 6,000 passengers. In fact, a total of nine cruise ships over 300 metres long will be calling at the port during the season. Ships such as the Costa Diadema, MSC Divina, MSC Preziosa, Norwegian Epic, Voyager of the Seas, Explorer of the Seas, Independence of the Seas, and the Celebrity Equinox will be regular visitors to the port. The three Mein Schiff ships, belonging to the company TUI, have also asked to use the Port of Palma as their home port for next season’s operations.Alcudia continues to growThe other Majorcan port managed by the APB, the Port of Alcudia, will be playing host to five cruises in 2015, three more than in 2014, with the Silver Wind calling at the port on three occasions. Conversely, calls at the ports of Ibiza (-11.6%), Mahon (-35.9%) and La Savina (-85.7%) are set to fall in 2015.These estimates are based on the berthing requests made by the cruise companies operating at the APB ports, and thus may change over the next few months. Press Office Port Authority of the Balearic Islands

Port of Maó now open to larger ships following successful completion of APB dredging project

24/07/2014

The aim of the Port Authority of the Balearic Islands (APB) to improve depths in the commercial port of Maó has been met, thanks to the dredging work that got underway last March. As a result of this project, the Minorcan port is now safer for vessel navigation, and can cater for ships up to nine metres deep. The general dredging work and discharge into the sea of dredged materials ended on 4th July. The operations to extract the last moderately contaminating dredged material and discharge it at the Cós Nou quay were concluded on 12th July. It is estimated that around 20,000 cubic metres of dredged material has been transferred to the Es Milà landfill site. During the dredging, no work accidents took place. Archaeological and environmental checks Around 9,000 archaeological pieces were recovered during the work, 4,000 of which will be sent to the Minorca Museum over the next year to be processed. The remaining pieces, which are of lesser archaeological interest, have been returned to the sea bed, in a monitored area of the port. During the dredging work, no dumping into the sea was carried out whilst there was a possibility of marine currents carrying the dredged material towards the coast. This was achieved thanks to the installation of a current meter and the use of a system which constantly informed the dredgers of the ocean current conditions. This and other actions were part of the Environmental Watch Plan (PVA), which was supervised by the Spanish Institute of Oceanography. The APB has temporarily maintained a link on www.portsdebalears.com to the website created specifically to monitor the dredging work at the Port of Maó, which has enabled visitors to follow the schedule and progress of the main aspects of the work, read the reports drawn up in the PVA, view the geographical position of the vessels used to transport the dredged material to the authorised discharge point, and monitor all the documents that have been posted on the website and updated as the work progressed.

The Port of Ibiza tenders the work to improve the berthing line on the Commercial Quays

08/07/2014

The Port Authority of the Balearic Islands (APB) has tendered the work to redesign and improve the structure of the South Ro-ro Quay and the Fuel Quay at the Port of Ibiza. The budget for the tender is €9,181,44.96, and the maximum execution period has been set at 15 months. The work will be carried out in two phases, so at least one of the two quays will remain operational at all times. The project consists of replacing the current piling structure, which has deteriorated over time, with sheet-piling, thus making the quays stronger and more durable. The improvement work will be carried out on a surface area of 8,352 square metres, which includes two Ro-ro ramps for loading and unloading, and the berthing lines on the South Ro-ro Quay and the Fuel Quay, located on the Commercial Quays at the Port of Ibiza. The deadline for bids is 18th August. Deterioration The South Ro-ro Quay was built in 1969 in line with the project entitled “Jetty for unloading fuel at the Port of Ibiza”. However, the current make-up of the berthing faces on the South Ro-ro and Levante Ro-ro (or Fuel) Quays is the result of several subsequent actions that were implemented at different times, and was not completed until 1998, via the project known as the “Platform for Ro-ro traffic on the east berthing face of the Commercial Quays at the Port of Ibiza”. On 28th March 2012, the APB inspected the underside of the superstructure on both quays and published a report about its condition. The pathologies that were detected (cracks in the deck, loss of reinforcement cover and buckling both on the deck and in the piling, and some piles which were about to collapse) are likely to affect the service and structural safety of the quays. Accordingly, a decision was made to take global action on the quays to ensure the correct functionality and structural resistance of these infrastructures.

The Port Authority of the Balearic Islands announces the 5th Balearic Island port and lighthouse painting and photography competition

20/06/2014

The Port Authority of the Balearic Islands (APB) has announced the 5th Balearic Island painting and photography competition. The theme of the competition centres on the Islands’ public ports and lighthouses, and has been organised in conjunction with the Palma de Majorca Fine Arts Society. The competition is open to all artists and photographers. The subject matter must be related to Balearic Islands’ lighthouses and the ports of Palma, Alcudia, Mahon, Ibiza and La Savina, which are all managed by the APB. There are three different categories, watercolours, other painting techniques, and photography. The prize money, which has been donated by the APB, stands at almost €11,000 for the different categories. Entries must be presented from 13th-31st October at the APB ports of Palma, Alcudia, Mahon, Ibiza or La Savina. A shortlist will then be put together, based on the artistic quality and presentation of the entries. The selected works will be put on display in different exhibition areas which are yet to be established.

The Port of Ibiza introduces provisional paid parking at the marina

20/06/2014

From Monday 23rd June, the Port of Ibiza will be introducing a provisional paid parking system in the marina area until work to redesign the port seafront gets underway in the month of September. The car park will have 145 parking spaces and will be open 24 hours a day from Monday to Sunday. Vehicle custody in the car park will be charged at €0.04 per minute, or €2.40 per hour. Tickets to access the car park will be issued via a ticket machine. Payments can be made automatically or manually, with change being given, and invoices provided when required. Users will not be charged for using the car park if their stay does not exceed 15 minutes. Residents permit Users that provide proof of residence will be able to request a 24-hour residents permit to use the car park, although with non-allocated spaces. A card will be issued per person and associated with their vehicle. To obtain a residents permit, which costs €90, applicants will have to comply with the requirements set out in the restricted parking ordinance in providing proof of residence in the town of Ibiza. The town council’s tax department will check compliance with requirements and accordingly confirm or reject the application. Applications should be made to the company that manages the car park facility, Ingenio 73, S.L., and once these have been checked by the Port Authority of the Balearic Islands, will be sent to the town council. A provisional 7-day card will be issued until the council gives its final decision. The conditions set out in the ordinance are a maximum of two people with resident status per address, the applicant must be registered on the electoral roll at an address within the area established in the regulation (see attached map), they must not have any outstanding municipal debts in a process of enforced collection, and must present the last road tax receipt duly paid in the town of Ibiza. Should the car park be full, residents will be allowed to access the facility for 30 minutes to carry out any necessary business. Local businessowners will be entitled to use the car park free of charge for 15 minutes, like other users. However, if they go over this time, they will be charged from the first minute. Goods vehicles that are loading or unloading, and other authorised vehicles will be entitled to access the car park initially from 12.00-17.00, although these times will be agreed with local businessowners, and will be given 30 minutes free parking in the designated areas. Taxis will be given 15 minutes to pick up and drop off passengers, whilst police, emergency service and official vehicles will have free access to the facility.

The Master Plan for the Port of Palma is presented to the Civil Engineers Association

10/06/2014

The APB Director, Juan Carlos Plaza, the Head of Planning and Sustainability, Jorge Nasarre, and the Head of Infrastructure, Antoni Ginard, met this morning with representatives from the Civil Engineers Association to talk them through the main points of the proposed Infrastructure and Master Plan for the Port of Palma. The Association was represented by its dean, Juan Antonio Esteban, and one of its members, Antonio Luengo. The APB is conducting a series of meetings with representatives from government, the media, political parties, professional associations, environmental organisations, and other groups to discuss the proposal and invite stakeholders to contribute to the plan drawn up by the APB, in order to obtain the maximum consensus before it is moved onto the next stage. For further information about the Infrastructure and Master Plan proposal, go to www.portsdebalears.com.

Sonrisa Médica presents “Red Nose Day” at the Port of Palma

04/06/2014

Today, Sonrisa Médica presented its programme for the “Red Nose Day” festival at the Port of Palma, which it has organised to mark the 20th anniversary of this pioneering non-profit association, whose objective is to transform hospital environments through comedy. According to Sonrisa Médica’s Director of Events, Projects, and Awareness, Fanny Guerrero, the “Red Nose Day” is a way of thanking the people of the Balearic Islands for their support over the last 20 years. To this end, Sonrisa Médica has organised a series of activities, workshops, and musical performances for the entire family from 10.00-20.00 on Sunday 8th June, in the main car park on the Camino de la Escollera, at the Port of Palma. Entry is a five-euro donation for adults, which will be spent entirely on funding Sonrisa Médica. The APB Chairman, Alberto Pons, praised the magnificent work that Sonrisa Médica does with patients in Majorca’s hospitals, and declared that he is delighted to help out by letting the organisation use this area at the Port of Palma to hold the first “Red Nose Day”. Pons also added that he hoped “that after this first festival, there will be many more to come until it becomes a firm fixture on the calendar”. The presentation was attended by Antonio Carmona, from the Palma City Council, Inma de Benito, from the Majorca Hotel Federation, and Simone Luca, from Grupo Juaneda, all of whom work with Sonrisa Médica, and by Aspirino the Clown, who invited everybody to come along to the “Red Nose Day” on Sunday.

HR Director, Juan Ginard, retires after 50 years at the APB

30/05/2014

Today, the APB paid tribute to Juan Ginard Garcías, the APB’s Human Resource Director, to mark his retirement after 50 years’ service. The APB Chairman, Alberto Pons, led the tribute and thanked Ginard for his dedication to what he insisted is “the most difficult job of all”. Juan Ginard, in turn, thanked “everybody with whom I have shared more than just work over all these years”. According to Ginard, “the time has come for me to do other things, and have some time for me and my family”. He wished all of the APB employees the best of luck and signed off “not with a goodbye but with a farewell”.