Airbus unveiled its previsions for the Spanish aviation market yesterday.

Over the next two decades, the group estimates that the Spanish airlines will need 415 aircraft, worth $ 45Bn (€ 28.5Bn), though the growth of the country’s tourism market could fuel further demand. Airbus forecasts that these orders will include 310 single-aisle aircraft, 80 widebodies and 25 larger models. Rafael Alonso, Airbus’s vice-president for Spain, Latin America and the Caribbean, explained that Spanish airlines had a leading role among Western European carriers in air traffic to South American destinations. Airbus values its Spanish market share at 60 % and now aims to sell the A380 superjumbo to the national airlines, in particular Iberia, the country’s largest one, which serves busy routes to Buenos Aires or Mexico. Mr Alonso confirmed that there have been “preliminary contacts” with Iberia, which “required information” about the A380 and A350 XWB. The airline is expected to decide over an order for new long-haul aircraft at the end of the year or beginning of 2009, points out Expansion. This order could be worth up to $ 3Bn through 2015. Expansion, Negocio