What changes for visitors and residents?
For now, nothing changes: anyone travelling from La Gomera to El Hierro still has to stop over, usually on Tenerife. Gomera Noticias reports that direct links between the three islands do not yet exist.
Nobody has set the frequencies, flight times, fares or operating conditions for the future routes, according to Gomera Noticias. No start date has been given either.
Guests in the south of Tenerife who plan a side trip to La Gomera, La Palma or El Hierro are in the same boat. For now, the detour via Tenerife remains the way to go.
If you plan to hop between the western islands, do not build your trip around the new link. Book on the existing routes and check with the airlines for news before you travel.
What is a public service obligation?
The OSP (obligación de servicio público, or public service obligation) lets authorities set minimum conditions for air routes. According to Gomera Noticias, the transport ministry uses it when the market does not secure enough flights or fair prices on its own.
Authorities can fix the minimum number of flights, the aircraft capacity, the flight times and the maximum fares. Travel Extra writes that the status protects routes from depending on profit alone.
The government cites the “double insularity” of the smaller islands that are not capitals as its reason, according to Travel Extra. None of the sources says who will pay the cost.
How far has the procedure got, and who decides?
Torres, the minister for territorial policy and democratic memory, wrote on X that the proposal went out officially on Friday 30 October. It went to the airlines and the Canary Islands government, which now have five days to lodge objections (alegaciones).
Counted from 30 October, the five days run out around 4 November, though the source gave no official end date. The Consejo de Ministros then reviews the proposal, but no date has been set for that.
The state decides, not the Canary Islands government. The Council of Ministers declares such obligations, and the transport ministry sets the reference fares by order.
Torres said the obligation for routes between the Islas Verdes (La Palma, La Gomera, El Hierro) means “no going back”. He said he was confident that the responses would be favourable.
What applies so far on the western routes?
The western islands already have an older OSP scheme, which goes back to a Council of Ministers decision of 2 June 2006. Its routes run to a large hub, such as La Gomera–Tenerife North and La Gomera–Gran Canaria, as the INAP summary shows.
New reference fares have applied since 1 August 2026 under Order TRM/789/2026 of 20 July. The BOE (Spain’s official state gazette) published it on 31 July.
The order sets the fares from Tenerife North at 84 euros to La Gomera, 92 euros to La Palma and 96 euros to El Hierro. From Gran Canaria they are 112 euros to La Gomera, 114 euros to La Palma and 133 euros to El Hierro.
No OSP route yet links La Palma, La Gomera and El Hierro with one another. The reference fares serve as a yardstick for any new route, but a fare for the new link is missing.
How long have the islands been asking, and what is still open?
Casimiro Curbelo (ASG, Agrupación Socialista Gomera) called an OSP between the Islas Verdes “unpostponable” on 11 February 2023, according to RTVC. He said the trip from La Gomera to El Hierro takes longer than the journey to Madrid.
The state has paid for direct flights of this kind before: the transport ministry funded seasonal Binter flights between La Gomera and Gran Canaria. They were extended from 1 October 2022 to 9 January 2023 and brought more than 1,000 extra seats a week, according to RTVC.
Still open are the list of routes, the reference fares, the size of the subsidy and the funding. Nobody has confirmed whether Binter or another airline will fly, or whether a tender will follow.
The legal basis for the urgent procedure and any objections from the airlines have not been named either. Rules on who qualifies, such as a discount for residents, have not been published.