11 FEB 2025

Óscar Puente marks the 30th anniversary of the Enaire Foundation, highlighting its role in promoting the culture and history of the aviation sector

The Minister of Transport and Sustainable Mobility, Óscar Puente, joined His Majesty the King today during the commemoration and awards ceremony for the 30th anniversary of the Enaire Foundation, a gala attended by more than 200 guests from the cultural and aviation sectors.

During the event, His Majesty the King presented the 2024 Aeronautical Awards, the 30th Anniversary Honorary Awards of the Enaire Foundation, and the 2024 Photography Career Award.

"The Enaire Foundation has been fulfilling its purpose for 30 years, promoting aviation culture and disseminating the history of air transport and its infrastructure. To this end, it awards prizes for research or innovation, organises art exhibitions, and builds partnerships aimed, for example, at promoting equality in the aerospace field and highlighting the role of women in the aviation sector", stated the Minister during the closing of the event, which was presided over by His Majesty the King.

In this regard, Óscar Puente described the Enaire Foundation's art collection as "impressive" and emphasised the importance of sharing it with the world "by physically exhibiting it or digitising its resources" through the Art Capsules initiative, which are open windows in Aena airports that offer a glimpse of its collection.

"Democratising culture also means spreading it so that it reaches as many people as possible. The most important thing about this anniversary is not the commemoration of these 30 years of the Enaire Foundation. What truly matters is the certainty that this work will continue", stated the Minister.

In this regard, the Secretary of State for Transport and Sustainable Mobility and president of the Enaire Foundation, Jose Antonio Santano, explained that the awards reflect the category of the Foundation's interests, values, and principles. "We know that our award recipients, both individuals and institutions, are our best ambassadors, and the best guarantee that the Enaire Foundation will continue to be, as it has been for the last 30 years, an asset of the 'Spanish Brand' in the future", he assured.

The gala was held at the Ateneo de Madrid, where the exhibition Flying Lovers: Por amor al arte y la aeronáutica can be visited until 27 February. The exhibition features aircraft models from the Enaire Collection and aviation art photographs taken by Marta Soul, with sets from films and planes from the Fundación Infante de Orleans at the historic Cuatro Vientos Airport.

Before the start of the event, His Majesty the King visited the exhibition, accompanied by the Minister of Transport and Sustainable Mobility, Óscar Puente; the Secretary of State for Transport and Sustainable Mobility, and President of ENAIRE and the Foundation's board, José Antonio Santano; and Margarita Asuar, Managing Director of the ENAIRE Foundation, who also attended the gala.

The prizewinners

In 2025, the Enaire Foundation, the only Spanish institution that brings together art and aviation in its mission, celebrates its three-decade milestone with honorary awards. As an exceptional measure, the 30th Anniversary Honorary Aeronautics Award was presented to Emilio Herrera (Granada 1879 – Geneva 1967), and accepted by the great-grandchildren of the Granada-born genius, who in 1935 invented the "stratonautical" helmet, regarded by NASA as a precursor to space suits.

The 30th Anniversary Honorary Photography Award was also presented to Chema Madoz for his distinctive photographic style. The Naves de Gamazo Art Centre, which the Enaire Foundation operates in Santander, is hosting a major retrospective exhibition of photographs and sculptural objects created by Chema Madoz during his 40-year art career. The 2024 Photography Career Award was given to visual artist Paloma Navares, a pioneer in exploring the female universe from a gender perspective.

Regarding the Aeronautical Awards of the Enaire Foundation, the Manuel Abejón Adámez Space Award was presented to the team of Enrique Aldao Pensado, Manuel Sanjurjo-Rivo, Higinio González Jorge, and Luis Miguel González de Santos for their work published in the IEEE Transactions on Aerospace journal, titled 'Estimation of the Position and Orientation of Space Objects using Artificial Intelligence from LiDAR Measurements in Active Debris Removal Operations', which initiates research on the removal of space debris.

The Luis Azcárraga Innovation Award was given to Raquel Delgado-Aguilera for her work 'Safety Performance Functions for Predicting Minimum Separation Violations in En-Route Airspace', a doctoral thesis in the Department of Aerospace Systems, Air Transport, and Airports at the School of Aeronautical and Space Engineering of ETSIAE-UPM, which seeks to develop a prevention and safety system for air routes by analysing minimum separation violations between aircraft.

The José Ramón Lopez Villares End-of-Degree and End-of-Master's Awards were also presented, which has two categories: airports and air navigation. In the air navigation category, the award went to Marina Pérez Navarro for her End-of-Degree Project at ETSIAE-UPM, titled ‘Automation of ATC Communications for Identifying Workload Based on Events’. In the airports category, the award was given to Marina Martínez Tragacete from the Carlos III University of Madrid for her End-of-Degree Project titled ‘Evaluation of Ground Operations of Next-Generation Hydrogen-Powered Aircraft’, which analyses the application of hydrogen at small, medium, and large airports.

The Enaire Foundation's I+Dron 2024 Award was granted to Marcos González Sanz of H2 DRON ENERGY SL for his project titled ‘Hydrogen Fuel Cell Propulsion for Drones’, launched by a startup.

Lastly, the Enaire Foundation's 2024 Aeronautical Journalism Award was presented to Laura Velasco del Río, for her article published in El Ideal de Granada on 8 October 2023, titled ‘An organ transplant amidst a fortified Granada during the Summit', in which the journalist recounts the excellent coordination between healthcare personnel, air traffic controllers, military staff, and airport personnel to facilitate a transplant during the security operations for the European Political Community Summit.

The ENAIRE Foundation

Is a cultural institution of the Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility that, in addition to managing, preserving and exhibiting the Enaire Collection of Contemporary Art, engages in a comprehensive annual programme of activities that focus on aeronautical art and culture. Notably, it is one of the institutions that currently provides the most support to photography through its annual prizes - which have become a benchmark for professional photographers - and by hosting exhibits.

The Naves de Gamazo are the first permanent home of the ENAIRE Collection of Contemporary Art, an example of collaboration between government agencies that was made possible thanks to the partnership and joint efforts of the Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility, the Government of Cantabria, through the Office for Culture, Tourism and Sport, and the Port Authority of Santander, which share the operating expenses of the centre in order to ensure the present and future viability of this cultural project.

The ENAIRE Foundation is implementing digital museum resources to boost the democratisation of art and make it accessible from anywhere in the world. These new museum resources are now available on the Foundation's website.