Iberia Enhances IAG Focus in the Americas

Spanish flag carrier Iberia is to further grow capacity between Europe and the Americas by increasing its offering in the Costa Rican markets. Details of the latest stage of its network development follow just a week after the airline announced an increase in frequencies on its flights into Panama.

The carrier, part of the International Consolidated Airline Group (IAG) and sister carrier to British Airways (BA), has a long association with the Central and South American markets and provides IAG with a clear focus in these developing markets. It is the only airline to have flown uninterruptedly to Central America for the past 40 years and offers direct flights to Guatemala, Panama and San Salvador, alongside its services to Costa Rica.

Iberia plans to increase capacity this year between Madrid and San José, Costa Rica by 5.5 per cent to more than 234,000 seats. This will be achieved by introducing larger aircraft on the route in the form of the Airbus A340-600, which offers 100 more seats than the equipment currently used.

Speaking during the recent FITUR tourism trade fair in Madrid, Costa Rica's Minister for Tourism, Allan Flores, said: “Iberia's increased seat supply between Madrid and San José is wonderful news for our country and reflects the excellent work done in the past several years by Iberia and the Costa Rican Tourism Institute to promote this destination and improve air links from the key European markets, chiefly Germany, Spain, France, the UK and Italy.”

Iberia currently holds a 43 per cent share of the Europe-Costa Rica market, while its share of the premium market is 66 per cent, making this a particularly high yield route for the flag carrier. Last year Iberia carried nearly 186,000 passengers between Madrid and San José and according to the carrier more than three quarters of passengers didn’t begin or end their journeys in Madrid and instead made connections to or from other cities in Spain or elsewhere in Europe, most particularly France, Italy, and Germany.

“Costa Rica is an emblematic destination for Iberia and we're betting heavily on our growth prospects in this market,” added Ángel Valdemoros, Head of International Sales, Iberia.