AENA again reports positive financial and operational data, but there are dark clouds on the horizon

AENA's financial results for the three months ended 30-Sep-2017 - the primary quarter for a country, Spain, where tourism is so important to the economy (14% of GDP) - show that the organisation's relentless progress since its partial privatisation in Feb-2015 continues.

But there are worrying developments outside its control. The northern European countries, led by the UK then Germany, are extremely important to Spanish tourism and therefore to AENA, and it is why the fall in the value of the pound, and 'Brexit' generally, concern AENA so greatly. With British resident expatriate figures in Spain already falling, a tail-off in UK visitors would upset AENA's future projections.

Just as AENA is heavily reliant on business from a select number of countries, so is it also reliant on the budget airlines that carry them to Spain. Further, a major issue facing not only AENA - but in fact all the airlines operating in and into Spain, all the tourist organisations, the hotels - is the Catalonian secession crisis, and its potential to spread unrest to other regions of Spain.