Ryanair will launch flights from the city from November 1, 2016 with a twice daily link to the Spanish capital, Madrid, a daily service to Brussels Charleroi and London Stansted, a four times weekly link to Berlin and twice weekly flights to Fez, Malta and Warsaw Modlin.
The oneworld alliance member will introduce a three times weekly service between Madrid and Tokyo from October 18, 2016. The Madrid – Shanghai route, also expected to be flown three times weekly, will commence from a similar time, but Iberia is still awaiting final approval from Chinese authorities and slots at Pudong International Airport before opening reservations.
The carrier will start operating the A350 XWB commercially in January 2016 between Sao Paulo and Manaus, Brazil, as part of continued training and crew familiarisation. This will be followed by operations from Sao Paulo to Miami in March and then to Madrid in April.
Monarch will introduce flights to Lisbon from the start of May with a three times weekly link from London Gatwick from May 3, 2016 and a three times weekly service from Manchester from May 5, 2016. Madrid will be added to its network from June 17, 2016 with the start of a four times flight from Birmingham, which will be followed just days later by a new four times weekly link between Birmingham and Lisbon.
The announcement marks the return of the Spanish flag carrier to Puerto Rico after a three-year hiatus following a restructuring of its long-haul operations to support its business transformation programme and return to profitability. The airline ended its previous flights between Madrid and San Juan in March 2013 but the void was quickly filled by Air Europa which introduced its own twice weekly operation on the route from January 2014.
At EU airports, the average passenger traffic growth was +6.3 per cent (+6.3 per cent also for Q3), while passenger traffic at Non-EU airports reported growth of +5.8 per cent (+6.4 per cent for Q3). Meanwhile, freight traffic at Europe’s airports was essentially flat in September at +0.2 per cent (+0.5 per cent for Q3). Finally, aircraft movements increased by +3.3 per cent (+2.9 per cent for Q3).
The new service will commence from March 28, 2016 and will be operated on a four times weekly schedule using a 180-seat Airbus A320 with both Business and Economy offerings. Alongside supporting the point-to-point local flows on the city pair, the route will also offer connections with another 34 destinations in Spain, Portugal, Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America via Iberia’s mainline network.
Although not formally confirmed by the airline, Cathay Pacific plans to offer a four times weekly link between Hong Kong International Airport and Madrid’s Adolfo Suarez-Barajas Airport from June 2, 2016 and will be flown using a three-class Boeing 777-300ER.
Vueling’s latest uploaded schedules show the Airbus A321 entering scheduled service on July 3, 2015 operating a morning return rotation on the Barcelona – Nantes route. The same day the aircraft will operate from Barcelona to Brussels and back and then in the evening to Granada and back before operating an overnight flight to Moscow.
The airline plans to expand its services to include a thrice weekly rotation between Hong Kong and Yancheng, in the Northeastern Jiangsu province, China. The two hour ten minute flight will be operated by the airline’s Airbus A320 aircraft, and will operate on Tuesday, Friday and Sunday from March 31, 2015.
Over a twelve-month period, preliminary data shows a growth rate of 5.1 percent year over year, with both international and domestic traffic posting strong growth rates of 5.8 percent and 4.5 percent respectively.
Aena, which runs 46 Spanish airports, saw its shares rocket as high as 17 percent on the day the company listed on the Madrid stock market, in Spain’s biggest initial public offering (IPO) since 2007.
These additional destinations raise to 23 the number of routes resumed or launched by Iberia in the past year, since agreements were reached with employee unions on cost reductions and productivity hikes last February and March, and the implementation of Iberia’s Future Plan.
The four times weekly Naples – Madrid route, flown by an Air Italy Boeing 737, has joined Bologna, Genoa and Geneva as new destinations to be served by Meridiana from Naples International Airport in the winter 2014/2015 schedule.
The SkyTeam alliance member will debut the aircraft on a weekly service to New York from April 12, 2015 and will also deploy the aircraft on a three times weekly route to Montevideo from April 13, 2015. The arrangement will enable the carrier to offer an enhanced service on both routes, while it will support the Polish carrier’s over capacity as it continues its business restructuring.
The airline has been offering a service on the Bogota – Barcelona route since June 2006. An estimated 76,000 passengers flew on the route in the first nine months of this year, up 10.1 per cent on the same period last year, with Avianca reporting average loads of more than 85 per cent.
Ryanair has been serving MR Štefánik Airport for almost ten years and is now firmly established as the largest scheduled operator with a 79.1 per cent share of departures and 93.2 share of capacity this month.
