Iberia will receive 2 new A330-200 in early 2018 and also the first 2 A350-900s in June and July so even if a couple of the 4 A340-600s that will have their lease expired during the first half of the year leave the fleet still should allow room for some growth.

The 2 A330's are only to fill the gap of the 2 that are now operating for Level, so not really net growth.
If those 4 A346 leave the fleet (whether all or some), the 2 A359 coming in will be a downgrade at a minimum in capacity, if not in aircraft number.
In an IAG investor presentation from 1-2 years ago, it stated that A346 replacement had not yet been decided.

So I hope the A346 stay until the end of their lives, which would mean the A359 would be for actual net growth. Otherwise, we can close this thread for a year, as with the current fleet setup one can hope at most for frequency increases, not new destinations. Which would make Norwegian or UX very happy - but would be a shame for IB which is doing well now.

The A359 is a capacity downgrade to the A346, and with some core routes already at or on the way to 14x weekly... I see little value in replacing 2xdaily A346 by 3xA359, given the small window of attractive flying times. I expect A35K sooner or later - but rather later, as IB will be interested in PIPed or higher MTOW A35K's.

at the end of this year the current collective agreement (contract) expires for both pilots and cabin crews so IB will try the usual carrot and stick tactic of offering more growth in long haul in exchange for increasing Iberia Express ops. When it comes to new routes in Europe it's going to depend on the ability to expand the I2 footprint.

Interesting. I2 has managed to be succesful on low-yield routes, they could certainly grow further if fleet limitations are lifted.

It seems IAG put an order for an additional A332 for IB as compensation for the Level trap... (50% of the downgrade, but still)

r2rho wrote:

Interesting. I2 has managed to be succesful on low-yield routes, they could certainly grow further if fleet limitations are lifted.

It seems the new conditions for January make the size of I2 related to a % of the total size of IB, which could mean good news for both

¿ORD and BOS first IB A350 destinations like the A330-300 years ago?

pabloeing wrote:

¿ORD and BOS first IB A350 destinations like the A330-300 years ago?

ORD maybe in the summer. Though it seems to be doing well since it's a 346 year round now. Though I would really expect them to use it for EZE, SCL, or MEX first to get the most out of the fuel savings over the 340.

r2rho wrote:

The 2 A330's are only to fill the gap of the 2 that are now operating for Level, so not really net growth.
If those 4 A346 leave the fleet (whether all or some), the 2 A359 coming in will be a downgrade at a minimum in capacity, if not in aircraft number.
In an IAG investor presentation from 1-2 years ago, it stated that A346 replacement had not yet been decided.

LEVEL A330's were meant to be net growth but as they went straight to the LEVEL operation I wouldn't count on them on being a decrease in fleet size as they were never in service with IB but yes the growth depends on keeping some of those 4 A340-600s around.

First half of the year IB is trending close to the 13% IAG ROIC target and made a profit for the first time in last 10 years so I'd be quite surprised if at least a couple of those A340-600s are not kept.

r2rho wrote:

The A359 is a capacity downgrade to the A346, and with some core routes already at or on the way to 14x weekly... I see little value in replacing 2xdaily A346 by 3xA359, given the small window of attractive flying times. I expect A35K sooner or later - but rather later, as IB will be interested in PIPed or higher MTOW A35K's.

From what I've heard seems that the A350-900 is going to be denser in economy than the current A340-600 configuration so probably the seat count difference is going to be that much but I also see the case for some A350-1000.

Jayafe wrote:

It seems the new conditions for January make the size of I2 related to a % of the total size of IB, which could mean good news for both

Under the current agreement I2 is already limited as a 15% of total ASKs offered by Iberia mainline and also there's a cap of 25 planes however the main restriction to grow I2 is that for each short haul aircraft added for I2 another short haul aircraft must be added to the mainline. On top of this Iberia pilots have the right to take 4 of each 5 captain positions open in Iberia Express with the right to return to Iberia mainline once a captain position is available so they basically use this as a fast track to the left seat as after years of stale growth many IB FO's were stuck career wise.

LupineChemist wrote:

Though I would really expect them to use it for EZE, SCL, or MEX first to get the most out of the fuel savings over the 340.

With only 2 frames and considering product consistency I think it's more likely to see it first on either shorter rotations or longer routes which aren't daily.

bcn92 wrote:

vinaixa wrote:

Barcelona's flights to the US West Coast came out of nowhere...

Flights from BCN to California came of the 207,000 indirect traffic in 2016 according the BARDC. In July, load factor was 94% LAX and 84% OAK (DY and LEVEL). OAK is year round and LAX year-round for DY and seasonal for LEVEL but I bet that LAX will be year-round for LEVEL in 2018 with the third aircraft based at BCN.

Just to clarify, with "out of nowhere" I wasn't referring to demand, but to prior advertising and expectations. What I've experienced with airtravel in Spain is that the media and forum users can be very insistent when a sector is not served (such as Asia from BCN a few years ago with only SQ to SIN, at which time you could see new threads and news articles on the topic released quite often). So yes, I'm sure if the flights are there it's because the market allows it and the numbers add up.

LatinPlane wrote:

One would think MTY would be the first to get service by IB due to it being more of a business-industrial hub for Mexico, but IB sells more tickets out of GDL to MAD and has studied and determined there are enough passengers to warrant a direct flight as soon as possibly 2018 when more A330 arrive. They would have already started flying 3x per week to GDL, but it got lucky and obtained extra slots at MEX and decided to go 3x daily on certain days. Mexico is IB's crown jewel market, so naturally, it has to continue to grow the pot.

http://www.transponder1200.com/iberia-p ... adalajara/

http://t21.com.mx/opinion/vuelo/2017/08 ... dmx-madrid

http://www.eleconomista.es/transportes/ ... atina.html

Thanks for the information. It is very interesting. Look fwd to seeing IB at GDL in the near future!

julianrv wrote:

From what I've heard seems that the A350-900 is going to be denser in economy than the current A340-600 configuration so probably the seat count difference is going to be that much but I also see the case for some A350-1000.

Oh wow, so that means a much smaller J class cabin. The A346s had 46 J seats and 300 Y seats before they installed premium economy. I assume the A359 will also have W, so that probably means very small J and W cabins. I concur that IB will need A350-1000s as I have advocated. That said, like r2rho, I hope the A346s remain longer at IB.

LupineChemist wrote:

pabloeing wrote:

¿ORD and BOS first IB A350 destinations like the A330-300 years ago?

ORD maybe in the summer. Though it seems to be doing well since it's a 346 year round now. Though I would really expect them to use it for EZE, SCL, or MEX first to get the most out of the fuel savings over the 340.

ORD is just terrible. Had to go from 10x 333 to 7x 346 (with AA adding 7X ORD-BCN).

Maybe ATL, DTW, or MSP have better potential.

I believe Iberia will have to keep the A340-600 for a little bit until they can count on a reliable option for the operation of cargo out of fields like UIO, BOG or MEX.

Interesting to see how well you were with some of your predictions. SFO will be added next year seasonal, apparently they won't discontinue the service to LAX during the next winter, NRT will add two extra flights per week, and I bet JNB will see some increase in frequencies too.

Connecting traffic, as for any network-airline, is of vital importance. They need to look for strategies in order to market their proposal taking into account its hub MAD.

I just posted a topic wondering about which could be inaugural routes for Iberia's 350s;)

KUL, PER, MTY

LH658 wrote:

KUL, PER, MTY

Asia is hard for Iberia. Not long time ago Skyscanner published MAD-SIN as one of the most likely to succcess unserved routes.

If not SIN, which would face lots of competition from the Middle East carriers, how about a link to MNL? Iberia traditionally likes the historical ties on its network. Philippine airlines seems to be adding back some capacitiy non-stop to Europe with flights to FRA, ZRH, and interestingly MAD. They announced that for the coming 2018, but you never know.

nadavatar64 wrote:

I think WAW and HEL can be added.

Yeah, especially HEL since Finnair is in the same alliance (Oneworld) and has a JV with Iberia. Also, Spain is a big market from Finland with approximately 1,2 million (+13.6%) passengers this year. Given that Iberia is weak in Asia, IB could feed passengers to Finnair's Asian flights and vice versa (I assume AY is already doing that).

QuawerAir wrote:

nadavatar64 wrote:

I think WAW and HEL can be added.

Yeah, especially HEL since Finnair is in the same alliance (Oneworld) and has a JV with Iberia. Also, Spain is a big market from Finland with approximately 1,2 million (+13.6%) passengers this year. Given that Iberia is weak in Asia, IB could feed passengers to Finnair's Asian flights and vice versa (I assume AY is already doing that).

Finnair increase flights in summer, having 2x daily at days.

I believe if they were to add HEL this would be operated by I2. Out of the 3 main markets in Scandinavia (CPH, ARN, OSL), Iberia only operates out of ARN, leaving all the rest 2 for I2. Same would happen to WAW in case they entered there.

QuawerAir wrote:

, Spain is a big market from Finland with approximately 1,2 million (+13.6%) passengers this year.

Sure, but that market is spread out between HEL and the Canaries, Malaga, Alicante, Barcelona and the Balearic Islands.
IBERIA don´t seem to care about other cities in Spain. They're all about Madrid.

IBERIA don´t seem to care about other cities in Spain. They're all about Madrid.

They care very much - which is why they have served those cities through their (now IAG) subsidiaries. IB mainline is indeed only about MAD, because that is what their role in IAG is. Non-MAD routes are handled by VY, I2 and YW.