On Saturday 19th October, seven cruise ships are scheduled to call at the Port of Palma and will coincide for several hours at the Majorcan capital’s facilities. 

The vessels are the AIDAvita, Thomson Dream, Queen Victoria, Albatros, L’Austral, Norwegian Epic and Alexander von Humboldt II, which means that around thirteen thousand people will be using the Port of Palma´s facilities on the same day. 

This morning, the Chairman of the Port Authority of the Balearic Islands (APB), Alberto Pons, met the Mayor of Maó, Águeda Reynés, in Palma, to discuss the latest developments affecting the Port of Maó and study the actions to be taken over the port’s dredging project, after the Environmental Public Prosecutor’s Office last week filed the complaint made by the GOB Ecology group which had alleged that the project was a criminal offence.

This afternoon, the Port Authority of the Balearic Islands’ Board of Directors appointed Juan Carlos Plaza Plaza as the new Director of the body that manages the public-interest ports in the Balearic Islands. The appointment was proposed by the APB Chairman, Alberto Pons.  

The Port Authority of the Balearic Islands has tendered the work to extend the berthing line at the Port of Palma so it can serve as a home port for the world’s largest cruise vessels. The project has based its calculations on the Oasis of the Seas, currently considered to be the longest cruise ship in the world at 361 metres long which has a capacity of 6,300 passengers and 2,400 crew.

The Spanish Official Gazette today published the Spanish Development Ministry Order announcing the appointment of Alberto Pons Fernández as the new Chairman of the Port Authority of the Balearic Islands to replace the outgoing Chairman, José Mª Urrutia Mera.

Antonio López-Istúriz, the Secretary-General of the European People’s Party and Euro MP for the Balearic Islands, today gave the closing speech at the port law conference organised by the Port Authority of the Balearic Islands (APB) at the Port of Palma in conjunction with the International Port Law Association, Acciona and the State-owned Ports Body.

The first day of a two-day conference on port law organised by the APB was held today at the Port of Palma. The conference was attended by numerous port facility managers from around Spain.

After today’s speeches on administrative concessions in ports, an analysis of TSJIB jurisprudence in relation to the APB and port authorities’ economic regulations, amongst other subjects, the conference’s participants visited the maritime signalling exhibition at the Portopí lighthouse.

This week, the APB took part in the Seatrade Cruise Convention, which was held in the German city of Hamburg, as part of the Spanish delegation headed by the State-owned Ports Body.

The Balearic Islands’ delegation, made up of APB staff and representatives of the islands’ shipping agents, met up with the industry’s main shipping companies to promote the Balearic Islands as a tourist destination for the cruise market and to work on the call schedules for the forthcoming seasons. 

Yesterday, the Spanish Official Gazette published the Port Authority of the Balearic Islands’ 2012 Financial Statements, which showed profits of €14.4 million and a turnover of €59.5 million. These statements were audited by the State Comptroller’s Office with no reservations.

Today, the Port of Alcudia played host to the first call of the Prinsendam, the second cruise ship to put in at the Majorcan port this year. The vessel’s first visit was marked by the traditional exchange of plaques between the ship’s Captain, Tim Roberts; the Head of the Port of Alcudia, Joan Gili; the Mayor of Alcudia, Coloma Terrasa, and the Manager of the Miguel Puigserver shipping agency Toni Horrach.