Abstract: The aim of this paper is to analyse the economic sustainability of fisheries exploitation through taking into account both the spatial and inter-temporal dimension of the Basque purse-seine fisheries targeting tuna. The Rapfish methodology is used for the analysis of Basque purse seiner fisheries operating in the Indian, Atlantic and the Pacific Ocean, between 1990 and 2006. In accordance with what has been observed in other Rapfish studies, the analysis shows that the contribution towards sustainability depends on many different attributes (both in the short-run and long-run), such as the average wage, subsidies, profitability and the gross added value. In general, it is stated that the fisheries operating in the Atlantic present the worst economic sustainability, in contract to the ones operating in the Indian Ocean which get the best economic performance. This paper also analyses the possible differences in terms of the economic sustainability of this fleet before and after the implementation and use of Fish Aggregation Devices (FADs). FADs are increasingly used by tuna purse-seine fleets all around the world. This paper demonstrates the influential role of FADs on the economic sustainability of the tuna purse-seine fleet operating in the Indian Ocean, but not for the other fleet operating in the Atlantic. Finally, it is for mention that the Rapfish technique is postulated as a complementary tool for defining justifiable policy recommendations and fishery management options.