Free travel for healthcare personnel in Spain’s Alicante and rest facilities for essential drivers

HEALTHCARE personnel in Alicante province will travel free with Renfe and Aena has postponed airport parking fees for grounded planes for six months.

Certain service stations in Alicante will also open “as essential service areas” to provide rest and food for medical and security staff, professional freight and public transport drivers.

They will join the network of three Alicante hotels and resports which remain open to frontline workers, announced the Minister for Transport, Mobility and the Urban Agenda, José Luis Ábalos.

In order to assist the movement of health care personnel who travelling between towns and cities during the coronavirus crisis, Renfe is providing free travel on High Speed, Long and Medium Distance and Avant trains to doctors, nurses, nursing staff, laboratory personnel, etc.

They will need proof of personal and professional identification, a health centre card or certificate.

In terms of air travel, Ábalos acknowledged that “we are aware that mobility restrictions within and outside Spanish territory, as well as the closure of borders between many countries, is plunging the sector into unprecedented drops in operations”.

For this reason, the Minister said “we have already taken measures that are generally available, such as the line of guarantees on behalf of the state to guarantee liquidity and those to make the mechanisms for temporary adjustment of activity more flexible to avoid layoffs”.

Ábalos announced that Aena has analysed how to help alleviate the burden on airlines of having a large part of their fleet parked at the various airports in the network, and its Management Committee has therefore “agreed to defer payment of the corresponding parking fees for a period of six months, without any financial cost, in other words, without interest”.

With regards to the taxi sector, Ábalos said they will benefit from the postponement of their tax debts.They are also entitled to the activity reduction benefit, accrediting a reduction of at least 75 per cent. In Alicante, taxi use has fallen by 90 per cent.

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Tara Rippin

Tara Rippin is a reporter for Spain’s largest English-speaking newspaper, Euro Weekly News, and is responsible for the Costa Blanca region.
She has been in journalism for more than 20 years, having worked for local newspapers in the Midlands, UK, before relocating to Spain in 1990.
Since arriving, the mother-of-one has made her home on the Costa Blanca, while spending 18 months at the EWN head office in Fuengirola on the Costa del Sol.
She loves being part of a community that has a wonderful expat and Spanish mix, and strives to bring the latest and most relevant news to EWN’s loyal and valued readers.

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