Spain’s Iberia will resume flights between Madrid–Barajas Airport (MAD) and Tokyo Narita Airport (NRT) in October 2024, restarting a route not served by the airline since 2020.

Iberia says in a statement the MAD-NRT route will mark the Oneworld carrier’s return to Japan. The airline suspended the MAD-NRT route in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The year-round service, which will be exclusive to Iberia, will open from Oct. 27, 2024, and be operated 3X-weekly with an Airbus A350 aircraft configured to carry 330 passengers, including 31 in business class. 

Iberia says it will offer more than 45,000 seats on the route during the 2024-25 northern hemisphere winter season through March 25, 2025.

“Due to the closure of Russian airspace, the flight path to Tokyo has been adjusted,” the airline says. “Given the critical role of winds in route planning, customers flying roundtrip with Iberia will do a round-the-world trip, as the outbound from Madrid to Tokyo will be done across the south and the inbound across the north.”

María Jesús López Solás, Iberia’s commercial and network development and alliances director, says the carrier's return to the Japanese capital, "together with the recently launched direct flights to Doha ... confirms our commitment to Asia."

"The economic growth of the countries in this continent is immense, as indicated by all the forecasts for the coming decades,” she adds.

Iberia says it will time flights to MAD so NRT-originating passengers can connect to the carrier’s services to destinations throughout Europe and to Latin America.