Do you see IB changing its strategy for Brazil and Chile now that LATAM completely left Oneworld?

Do you see IB changing its strategy to South America (mainly Brazil and Chile) now that LATAM fully left Oneworld?

No change of strategy just because a competitor leaves the alliance.
IB only flies to the main cities in LatinAmerica countries and not even every country. Air Europa is the one opening untapped new markets like Recife (BR), Iguazú (BR/AR), Asuncion (PY), Cordoba (AR)....

It’s not IB has ceased interline agreements with LatamChile, maybe Ethel even keep codeshares and FFs, so destinations beyond SCL could be still reachable.

Well have to wait and see if OW regains some other player in the region, and connections through that partners’ hub could open up vía codeshares... but nothing more.

And of course... we’ll have to take a close look at the Covid crisis development

I agree,

Probably the interest behind IB flirting UX is also those 787s to be flown to secondary ports of South America where premium demand is lower but still have tones of potential for a direct link to Madrid and beyond.

Thomas Cook Balearics was taken over by German investment company. CEO will be Álvaro Middelmann, known to many as ex AirBerlin Sales Supervisor for Spain.

https://www.vozpopuli.com/economia-y-fi ... 65336.html

In other news, Alba Star, will start this summer more Italian domestic flights New focus city will be Trapani.

https://www.varesenews.it/2020/05/albas ... ni/928870/

Any ideas as to what the plan is for Thomas Cook Balearic ? I'm guessing some sort of wet lease / ACMI operation, but not sure they can compete with rivals in the Baltics or Bulgaria who have low operating costs...

Alba Star will start repatriation flights from South Africa to Italy on B738 via Malabo...

https://ambpretoria.esteri.it/ambasciat ... o-dei.html

debonair wrote:

Alba Star will start repatriation flights from South Africa to Italy on B738 via Malabo...

https://ambpretoria.esteri.it/ambasciat ... o-dei.html

They seem to have quite a big connection to Italy as a Spanish airline. Does anyone know what their story is? They have a British CEO, Charters out of LDS and domestic operations in Italy. Find them quite interesting.

lesfalls wrote:

They seem to have quite a big connection to Italy as a Spanish airline. Does anyone know what their story is? They have a British CEO, Charters out of LDS and domestic operations in Italy. Find them quite interesting.

Seems to be a trend, Volotea an airline from Spain started operations back in 2012 from Venice/Italy. Even today, the airline is having more bases in France and Italy than in Spain altogether...

It looks like IB is starting to phase out the A346s. While I love their A350s, I will miss flying these birds.
Some Interesting facts: The A346s were the only ones with a dedicated bathroom for PE passengers. They used to have an onboard bar for BusinessPlus in its old configuration. IB lost one of these in Quito in a runway overrun (no fatalities).

https://www.forbes.com/sites/willhorton ... 6ed59e238c

himarhernandez wrote:

It looks like IB is starting to phase out the A346s. While I love their A350s, I will miss flying these birds.
Some Interesting facts: The A346s were the only ones with a dedicated bathroom for PE passengers. They used to have an onboard bar for BusinessPlus in its old configuration. IB lost one of these in Quito in a runway overrun (no fatalities).

https://www.forbes.com/sites/willhorton ... 6ed59e238c

I had some good flights LHR - MAD on these will be sad to see them go.

We better hurry then..BA/IB still show 777 and A346 on their booking systems for now and since they have not finalized their retirement schedule yet,we might have some time by the end of 2020 to fly them on the LHR-MAD..Unless sudden death occurs like AF's all A380s! (which i pray not)..

OA260 wrote:

himarhernandez wrote:

It looks like IB is starting to phase out the A346s. While I love their A350s, I will miss flying these birds.
Some Interesting facts: The A346s were the only ones with a dedicated bathroom for PE passengers. They used to have an onboard bar for BusinessPlus in its old configuration. IB lost one of these in Quito in a runway overrun (no fatalities).

https://www.forbes.com/sites/willhorton ... 6ed59e238c

I had some good flights LHR - MAD on these will be sad to see them go.

That has to be cool, a medium or short haul flight in one of these. I always fly them but international and then get on a smaller cramped IB321 to the Canaries (even though I know they also fly them there)

marcogr12 wrote:

We better hurry then..BA/IB still show 777 and A346 on their booking systems for now and since they have not finalized their retirement schedule yet,we might have some time by the end of 2020 to fly them on the LHR-MAD..Unless sudden death occurs like AF's all A380s! (which i pray not)..

I hope that you do, they say that they will be around until 2025, they are just starting to phase them out so you should be able to catch a few more.

Wizz Air announce new routes to Spain:

London Luton (LTN):
Fuerteventura (FUE) - 2x weekly - begins 3 July 2020
Lanzarote (ACE) - 2x weekly - begins 27 October 2020
Malaga (AGP) - Daily - begins 1 July 2020
Palma (PMI) - 5x weekly - begins 1 July 2020

Milan Malpensa (MXP):
Fuerteventura (FUE) - 2x weekly - begins 31 July 2020
Gran Canaria (LPA) - 2x weekly - begins 5 July 2020
Menorca (MAH) - Daily - begins 3 July 2020
Tenerife (TFS) - 3x weekly - begins 4 July 2020
Valencia (VLC) - Daily - begins 17 July 2020

Iberia and Vueling to ramp up short and medium-haul operations in July

https://www.businesstraveller.com/busin ... from-july/

Passenger with Coronavirus Arrives at Lanzarote Airport

The Civil Guard arrived at Lanzarote airport after receiving information that a passenger who had tested positive for Covid-19 was flying to the island. The man appears to be a resident of the island but had travelled to the Peninsula to attend his mother's funeral in Ciudad Real.

It was while he was in the Peninsula when he was tested for coronavirus because he had been in contact with a possible source of contagion, and the results were positive, but health sources say that he did not know it when he got on the plane. The Civil Guard pointed out that he would have been told that he should keep confinement and that he failed to comply with this measure by taking the plane without waiting for the test result, so they have opened proceedings against him.

www.buzzfm.es/passenger-with-coronaviru ... te-airport

Iberia seems to be taking over many I2 routes

They started off with few domestic sectors this July (SCQ, SVQ, SPC, as well as some rotations to the Canaries with narrow bodies)

Checking the schedules right now they increase frequencies to those domestic routes already served (SVQ and SCQ 3-4/daily, SPC up to 2x/day), plus they also take over I2 to Amsterdam (4x/w), Berlin, (4x/w) Dublin (daily) and Manchester (2x/w).

All these routes are just marketed under IB for August but they could be extended over the next months maybe?

This could be consequence of the agreement between IB/I2 to divide production.

How do you see I2 in future? Do you see IB making any changes to its low cost airline?

a350lover wrote:

Iberia seems to be taking over many I2 routes

They started off with few domestic sectors this July (SCQ, SVQ, SPC, as well as some rotations to the Canaries with narrow bodies)

Checking the schedules right now they increase frequencies to those domestic routes already served (SVQ and SCQ 3-4/daily, SPC up to 2x/day), plus they also take over I2 to Amsterdam (4x/w), Berlin, (4x/w) Dublin (daily) and Manchester (2x/w).

All these routes are just marketed under IB for August but they could be extended over the next months maybe?

I highly doubt this will continue for long. I’m sure the Union wouldn’t be happy with I2 flying here and there while IB crewA are on hold.

But one curious note. SDR was an AirNostrum airport for quite some time. Just MAD and BCN at the beginning, then some secondary routes lately just around Easter and summer holidays. Vueling took over the BCN route Reduction the up to 4xCR2 daily at the time. And IB two years ago replaced the regional 8xdaily MAD operation with just 4xdaily 319 (some 320s).
Now the MAD-SDR is not even daily!!!
I know the traffic recovery will be slow but I think this is too much

Wizzair launches another 4 routes to Spain from London LTN:
- Alicante (7/week)
- Ibiza (4/week)
- Mahon (3/week)
- Valencia (3/week)
https://www.routesonline.com/news/38/ai ... gust-2020/

Iberia is simply taking over I2 routes because the pilots agreement is that I2 is capped to 15% of the ASK production and with most of the long haul flying gone this means Iberia needs to take a bigger chunk of the short haul flights.

Madrid-Santander is not that far away in train (Alvia). And BIO is 1-hour by car.

I suspect that tertiary Northern Spanish airports (LCG, VGO, OVD, SDR, EAS, PNA) are never going to really recover, and carriers would focus even more in the two main airports in the area (BIO and SCQ). This has been a trend over the last 10 years that now will just accelerate.

Those are small markets that even in the best of times had a limited demand. High-speed train improvements are going to be completed to LCG, VGO and OVD by early 2022 the latest (even in a couple of months time will be already reduced by one hour by train from Madrid to LCG/VGO/SCQ). That coupled now with post-COVID world will be catastrophic for the viability of those small airports.

Already in June when traffic started again (and despite having pretty much 0 international traffic, which is concentrated in SCQ), SCQ had more than 70% share of the total Galician market. Before COVID that was about 50%.

julianrv wrote:

Iberia is simply taking over I2 routes because the pilots agreement is that I2 is capped to 15% of the ASK production and with most of the long haul flying gone this means Iberia needs to take a bigger chunk of the short haul flights.

If the agreement restricts I2 production just to 15% of the "total" ASK of Iberia mainline (including long haul) the resulting market for I2 will be too little under current conditions. What are the chances Iberia pushes for a new agreement regarding the coexistence of IB & Express so that Express can get some bigger? As a matter of fact, IB labour costs for new staff are as competitive as in Express. I wonder if this pandemic is going to hurt Express, or the other way around.

SCQ83 wrote:

Madrid-Santander is not that far away in train (Alvia). And BIO is 1-hour by car.

I suspect that tertiary Northern Spanish airports (LCG, VGO, OVD, SDR, EAS, PNA) are never going to really recover, and carriers would focus even more in the two main airports in the area (BIO and SCQ). This has been a trend over the last 10 years that now will just accelerate.

Those are small markets that even in the best of times had a limited demand. High-speed train improvements are going to be completed to LCG, VGO and OVD by early 2022 the latest (even in a couple of months time will be already reduced by one hour by train from Madrid to LCG/VGO/SCQ). That coupled now with post-COVID world will be catastrophic for the viability of those small airports.

Already in June when traffic started again (and despite having pretty much 0 international traffic, which is concentrated in SCQ), SCQ had more than 70% share of the total Galician market. Before COVID that was about 50%.

Whilst it might be true that all of these northern aiports will be loosing Madrid service as HSR reaches an increasing number of destinations, I don't agree that that they will be ghosted, at least not much more than what they already are. With the HSR rail system in Spain being mostly centred around Madrid, catching flights from Barcelona, for example, to Galicia/Asturias... are a much more viable option than going all the way to Madrid and then back up. As such, most of the airports you mentioned will still be receiving at leats 1-3 daily flights on VY to BCN..

SCQ83 wrote:

Madrid-Santander is not that far away in train (Alvia). And BIO is 1-hour by car.

I suspect that tertiary Northern Spanish airports (LCG, VGO, OVD, SDR, EAS, PNA) are never going to really recover, and carriers would focus even more in the two main airports in the area (BIO and SCQ). This has been a trend over the last 10 years that now will just accelerate.

Those are small markets that even in the best of times had a limited demand. High-speed train improvements are going to be completed to LCG, VGO and OVD by early 2022 the latest (even in a couple of months time will be already reduced by one hour by train from Madrid to LCG/VGO/SCQ). That coupled now with post-COVID world will be catastrophic for the viability of those small airports.

Already in June when traffic started again (and despite having pretty much 0 international traffic, which is concentrated in SCQ), SCQ had more than 70% share of the total Galician market. Before COVID that was about 50%.

Northern Spain-Madrid is the biggest domestic market for Iberia/Air Europa apart from the islands and Barcelona.

It's hard to analyze things under current conditions. I agree the impact on travel times with the high speed trains serving Galicia-Madrid will hurt the aviation. That happened in places like Seville first, Barcelona, Valencia or Malaga. However, we can't forget that there are poor/inexistent connections from AVE network to MAD airport, which means that the majority of connecting pax will still need flights from Northern Spain to MAD even with the new AVE services.

Vigo, Coruña and Bilbao are heavy business routes. I don't see Iberia dropping services there soon. Asturias won't see the AVE as early as Galicia, so I'd say they still have another 5 years of aviation dominating the route to Madrid. SDR, EAS and PNA are likely places to downgrade to ANE for the connecting pax. IAG has quite a few options to serve these regions adjusting demand. The only possible scenario where I could see most of them loosing their routes to MAD is AVE reaching T4. Even in that scenario IAG could use Express/Air Nostrum for a limited amount of connections.

Said that, it's 100% sure Madrid-North of Spain will see heavy decrease in traffic numbers due to COVID and who knows if ever they get back to pre-COVID figures.

Last year IB had plans to initiate discussions to change the collective labour agreement so that IB Express could grow at a faster rate (atm, IB Express is limited to 15% (not of the IB production, it's the combined IB+IB Express production) and 1:1 32X aircraft incorporation). But at the end IB management dropped the plans since the pilots were not really open to it as they feared IB Express would take Ib's long haul 321XLR operations (even though the union management was willing to start discussions).

IB chose peace instead of confrontation.

I think currently, the dual IB & IB Express dual operation is being a headache. Many duplicities, % calculations,... and at the end of the day, the onboard product is not that different between IB and IB Express, and as A350lover says, the pay scale is not that different. I'm not sure in 1 year time IB Express still exists: you know, IB will have plenty of short and medium haul planes available, as I believe the Puente Aereo is "finito" as Italians would say. Or "Game Over".

tobsw wrote:

Last year IB had plans to initiate discussions to change the collective labour agreement so that IB Express could grow at a faster rate (atm, IB Express is limited to 15% (not of the IB production, it's the combined IB+IB Express production) and 1:1 32X aircraft incorporation). But at the end IB management dropped the plans since the pilots were not really open to it as they feared IB Express would take Ib's long haul 321XLR operations (even though the union management was willing to start discussions).

IB chose peace instead of confrontation.

I think currently, the dual IB & IB Express dual operation is being a headache. Many duplicities, % calculations,... and at the end of the day, the onboard product is not that different between IB and IB Express, and as A350lover says, the pay scale is not that different. I'm not sure in 1 year time IB Express still exists: you know, IB will have plenty of short and medium haul planes available, as I believe the Puente Aereo is "finito" as Italians would say. Or "Game Over".

Correct. The brand and the product are nearly equal from one to another. Frequent flyers know which one they fly in just because they tend to maintain separate routes each other. Main logic to me was IB had/have more presence in core business markets (i.e GVA, ZRH, LIN, BRU...) whereas I2 was used for leisure markets (Canaries and Baleares for instance). There are exceptions to this such as DBV or BGO operated under IB being these places purely summer seasonal.

If the agreement remains in place and IB management can't do anything to "fight" for more rights at I2, I don't see much market for Express. The Canaries and Mallorca would be like their biggest niche, with actual bases there. Said this, and despite the pay scale these days pretty much comparable (t&c are much restrictive for IB staff compared to those in I2), I don't see IB getting rid of I2 creation which provoked as much confrontation and hurt within the airline.

aviator2000 wrote:

Whilst it might be true that all of these northern aiports will be loosing Madrid service as HSR reaches an increasing number of destinations, I don't agree that that they will be ghosted, at least not much more than what they already are. With the HSR rail system in Spain being mostly centred around Madrid, catching flights from Barcelona, for example, to Galicia/Asturias... are a much more viable option than going all the way to Madrid and then back up. As such, most of the airports you mentioned will still be receiving at leats 1-3 daily flights on VY to BCN..

I am not saying they will lose Madrid service. Iberia keeps flying to PNA which is a 3 hour something by train to MAD.

I am saying it will be greatly reduced. In any case LCG, OVD and VGO have two carriers in the MAD route (Iberia and Air Europa). Air Europa is going to disappear (whether by bankruptcy or integrated in IAG).

As for Barcelona indeed BCN will stay there. But MAD and VGO are basically Madrid and Barcelona and pretty much nothing else. And Vueling has a base in LCG because of subsidies. And VGO subsidises anything that wants to fly there.

VGO went down to less than 700k year in 2014 (crisis). Now with the mega-crisis + concentration of PAX in SCQ/OPO + high-speed, it is very likely that those airports go down to under 500k PAX in the near term (pretty much split between connections via MAD and O&D to BCN), putting them in the league of similarly-sized cities like Valladolid or Pamplona. So nothing really crazy.

a350lover wrote:

It's hard to analyze things under current conditions. I agree the impact on travel times with the high speed trains serving Galicia-Madrid will hurt the aviation. That happened in places like Seville first, Barcelona, Valencia or Malaga. However, we can't forget that there are poor/inexistent connections from AVE network to MAD airport, which means that the majority of connecting pax will still need flights from Northern Spain to MAD even with the new AVE services.

Vigo, Coruña and Bilbao are heavy business routes. I don't see Iberia dropping services there soon. Asturias won't see the AVE as early as Galicia, so I'd say they still have another 5 years of aviation dominating the route to Madrid. SDR, EAS and PNA are likely places to downgrade to ANE for the connecting pax. IAG has quite a few options to serve these regions adjusting demand. The only possible scenario where I could see most of them loosing their routes to MAD is AVE reaching T4. Even in that scenario IAG could use Express/Air Nostrum for a limited amount of connections.

Vigo and Coruña are not heavy business routes. They just have some business traffic which are basically Inditex (LCG) and Peugeot-Citroën (VGO). Bilbao is much more diversified and bigger. That is also an interesting topic btw.

Inditex (the driver of LCG's traffic) just suffered their first loses in 20 years. Inditex in the previous Spanish crisis grew a lot (because it is an international company, so they pretty much didn't care about what was going on in Spain at that time). Now it is not case; there is little growth for Inditex ahead (more about declining vs e-commerce) coupled that with less corporate travels. I always thought that the Vueling base in LCG (which btw is subsidised by the city) was just a way to provide multiple daily flights to BCN (which is where a few several other Inditex brands - Massimo Dutti, Bershka, Stradivarius - are headquartered). So let's see what happens now.

Vigo is about PSA which is about a French automaker, and French companies are not between repatriating factories to France or moving them to cheaper places (read Morocco). So Spain is in a bad in-between (like the recent closure of Nissan). Coupled that with an overall reduction in the car market in Europe, that puts that market in a bad position.

In any case, all those airports (VGO, LCG, OVD, SDR) had really didn't take off in the last 10 years (despite crazy subsidies) because traffic just concentrated in SCQ and BIO which undoubtably have way more carriers and destinations that 10 years ago, and are an "step above". Only SDR coped well with Ryanair's base.

No doubt this trend just will accelerate. The market is now smaller, so less need to spread between 7 or 8 airports (when counting as far as EAS or PNA) when carriers can focus on only two.

SCQ83 wrote:

As for Barcelona indeed BCN will stay there. But MAD and VGO are basically Madrid and Barcelona and pretty much nothing else. And Vueling has a base in LCG because of subsidies. And VGO subsidises anything that wants to fly there.

You seem to forget that Binter established and keeps a good schedule of direct flights to the canary islands and AirNostrum has/had VGO as one of the cities with more destinations for their fleet, and that HSR will only slightly affect VGO, as will have no direct link to MAD (not even the airport) and the travelling times will be around 4 hours, which is far from competitive in >600km journeys (anything above 3hrs fails to compete). VGO will not have a competitive HSR link in +10 years.

Remember (ignoring it doesn't make it disappear) that +90% of the flights departing SCQ are (and have been for +20yers) getting strong subsidies (through local council, regional government and Xacobeo's association, pending on several investigations related to money laundering). This even came to the point where flights were financed to fly from SCQ competing with profitable services (VGO-CDG, FR operations moved to SCQ due to a higher bid from the regional gov than what VGO considered fair to pay the airline) and projects launched by airlines (LCG-IST, LCG-AMS, some LCG-LON services, the FRA service...). Someone appears to think that having an airport in the middle of nowhere, with almost to none business catchment area will work if you throw enough euros into it. Hasn't happened and won't never mind how loud they claim it works.

SCQ83 wrote:

And VGO subsidises anything that wants to fly there.

It's hard to understand why so many outrageous offers from companies (Vueling, Iberia, Volotea, Ryanair) have been declined to join the public offer at VGO as their prices where out of the market. Meanwhile SCQ accepts to pay whatever is asked to not lose the opportunity of flying half empty planes from a barely occupied terminal (the brand new one, the old one is closed due to lack activity waiting for....)

SCQ83 wrote:

VGO went down to less than 700k year in 2014 (crisis). Now with the mega-crisis + concentration of PAX in SCQ/OPO + high-speed, it is very likely that those airports go down to under 500k PAX in the near term (pretty much split between connections via MAD and O&D to BCN), putting them in the league of similarly-sized cities like Valladolid or Pamplona. So nothing really crazy.

Again HSR will only slightly impact VGO due to not competitive travelling times, and BCN is out of the question with double the distance. The HSR link between VGO in MAD will get a diversion of 100km north.....to stop in Santiago. One more time artificially diverting business and economic growth to make up numbers showing SCQ as a pole of importance that it is not, and won't be nevermind how much politicians try. Just another Brazilia.

SCQ83 wrote:

Vigo and Coruña are not heavy business routes. They just have some business traffic which are basically Inditex (LCG) and Peugeot-Citroën (VGO). Bilbao is much more diversified and bigger. That is also an interesting topic btw.

IB keeps the link VGO-MAD instead of I2 flying SCQ-MAD due to the business and connection loads (quality traffic) instead of the O&D fight to the bottom from a low population city to the capital for weekend city breaks.
VGO and LCR are the two business traffic leads in the whole region, so compared to SCQ, VAD, LEO, OVD, they can indeed being considered business heavy. Their strongest lines are MAD and BCN simply because only leisure passenger are price sensitive enough to commute to an inconvenient location for the incentive of a greatly subsided flight. Same happens with BIO, which has been working profitably for long, even when subsided flight were established to compete from SCQ (which is obviously failing due to lack of business target in mainly administrative city with barely 100k has and near to 0 industry). When you need frequency and convenience for business, no one in the 2 real cities in the north west will use SCQ as a reasonable alternative..

BIO is much diverse than VGO and LCG. Also is MAD. Or IBZ. So?

SCQ83 wrote:

In any case, all those airports (VGO, LCG, OVD, SDR) had really didn't take off in the last 10 years (despite crazy subsidies) because traffic just concentrated in SCQ and BIO which undoubtably have way more carriers and destinations that 10 years ago, and are an "step above". Only SDR coped well with Ryanair's base.

The only airport in the region that got (and keeps getting) a crazy dump of public money with no conditions (as they don't have negotiation power to attract business) in the region is SCQ, and its numbers are not exactly astonishing compared to the rest of airports that play by the market rules instead of throwing around blank checks. Whoever is interested is checking those numbers post crisis, will easily find i.e. that VGO was following it's expected growing path for a number of years post 2008 crisis (before FR was bribed to leave the place) and LCG was crashing its number with a tiny terminal and 0 investment in infrastructure. But those are only facts, which doesn't fit the narrative coming from SCQ and the "official speech", and that foreigners would buy as "having an airport in the middle of the economic poles" might make sense to avoid discussions. Happily economy doesn't work that way when you try to state by law that unicorns exists.

So many wrong and wishful thinking answers that is hard where to start from. But since this forum is read by so many people around the world, let's put things clear.

As said, LCG and VGO subsidise basically everything.

LCG = Vueling is subsidised to base their plane there. For instance LHR is not loaded further than October 2020 as they are waiting for the renewal of their monies (that happens every season for more than 10 years; it is already a tradition ). The last one was 2 million euros from the city council: https://tur43.es/general/emigrantes-gal ... ndres.html

Even Iberia is (partially subsidised) because they increased flights to Madrid after some help. Volotea is subsidised. Air Europa was. Plenty of articles in Google.

VGO = Air Nostrum is subsidised. Vueling is not subsidised hence why even before COVID it was not even daily to BCN. Ryanair or Volotea were subsidised in recent years. Plenty of articles in Google.

So what will work in a non-subsidised world in LCG and VGO? Iberia to Madrid (with less frequencies), some weekly Vueling Barcelona flights (like VGO before COVID)... and Binter to Canarias from VGO to get Portugal-bounded passengers with the 75% domestic rebate which is a marginal market. That is the route panel that airports like San Sebastián, Pamplona (less Lufthansa) or Valladolid (plus Madrid) have.

SCQ on the other hand in the last 10 years has got four based planes (2x Ryanair, 2x Vueling), easyJet, Lufthansa, Swiss/Edelweiss, TAP (hopefully for 2021), even Volotea this very summer without subsidies, (unlike in VGO or LCG before) started flying there with no subsidies from the SCQ side. It is definitely not Dubai but undoubtedly it is at another level. And I ask you to find some information online (plenty of it about VGO and LCG) about those subsidies.

Regarding the VGO comment about the high-speed train, it will be competitive on time (a bit more than 3 hours). For people who does not know what he is talking about, the previous poster is just talking about a more direct route from Madrid to Vigo which would save maybe 20 minutes and will cost hundreds of millions of euros (not happening before, and obviously not happening after COVID). The expected train (to be completed in 2021) is doing MAD-SCQ-VGO. Pure wishful thinking.

Reality is stubborn. There is no such big business market. There is no such local demand. The trend was there; traffic concentrating in regional airports such as SCQ or BIO. High-speed train would have just accelerated it. Like many other things (such as e-commerce), COVID will just make this trend accelerate even more.

I see that IB is sending widebodies daily to the Canaries now alternating between Gran Canaria and Tenerife. I did not realize that traffic was picking up that much, maybe a lot of national tourism vs international. Article also states that it is to keep staff trained on the increased number of A350s in the fleet.
Maybe I will be able someday to be in one of these widebodies and their flat seats (I was get stuck with IB Express in a A321)
Article only in Spanish, sorry!
https://grupo.iberia.es/news/22072020/i ... z?ref=Home

himarhernandez wrote:

I see that IB is sending widebodies daily to the Canaries now alternating between Gran Canaria and Tenerife. I did not realize that traffic was picking up that much, maybe a lot of national tourism vs international. Article also states that it is to keep staff trained on the increased number of A350s in the fleet.
Maybe I will be able someday to be in one of these widebodies and their flat seats (I was get stuck with IB Express in a A321)
Article only in Spanish, sorry!
https://grupo.iberia.es/news/22072020/i ... z?ref=Home

Exactly, it's more about intercontinental demand being very low other than traffic picking up. I don't know how many long haul destinations Iberia operated before COVID, but a quick search on flightradar shows you that the ammount of widebodies being utilised is very low.

himarhernandez wrote:

I see that IB is sending widebodies daily to the Canaries now alternating between Gran Canaria and Tenerife. I did not realize that traffic was picking up that much, maybe a lot of national tourism vs international. Article also states that it is to keep staff trained on the increased number of A350s in the fleet.
Maybe I will be able someday to be in one of these widebodies and their flat seats (I was get stuck with IB Express in a A321)
Article only in Spanish, sorry!
https://grupo.iberia.es/news/22072020/i ... z?ref=Home

Would love to get the IB 350 myself next time Im down . Depends how long they intend to operate them for .

Last year IB also operated 330 and 340 down to the Canaries from May - September.

This year, schedule has been a mess; they started with a very low schedule, but have increased recently. They have increased significantly frequency to the Canaries - sometimes matching pre-Covid19 frequencies (like SPC).

I think the reason for wide bodies is cargo.

Looks like LEVEL will maintain its operation out of Barcelona airport for now. On a statement yesterday, the airline said that flights would be resumed in September with 3weekly frequencies to both Buenos Aires and JFK. Link in spanish only:

https://www.europapress.es/turismo/tran ... 50321.html

aviator2000 wrote:

Looks like LEVEL will maintain its operation out of Barcelona airport for now. On a statement yesterday, the airline said that flights would be resumed in September with 3weekly frequencies to both Buenos Aires and JFK. Link in spanish only:

https://www.europapress.es/turismo/tran ... 50321.html

Looking at schedules, I think they could easily operate these EZE+JFK rotations via 2 frames. They actually sent to Ciudad Real 2 of the 4 A332s which LEVEL operates at its BCN long haul base. In case they restarted BOS, SCL and SFO, they would surely need some of those back from storage.

Wonder what's going to happen to the frames operating from ORY.

I wouldn't hold my breath with Spain seeing a dramatic spike in the number of cases again and Catalonia going on local lockdowns..Today Spain's coronavirus data registered 2615 cases in just one day!! A far cry from the 100 cases they had a short while ago..And with USA going from bad to worse it's a recipe for disaster..

Wizzair continues to add flights to Spanish holiday destinations. This time the new routes are:
+ Milan (MXP) - Ibiza (IBZ), daily A321 - begins 6th August
+ Vienna (VIE) - Palma de Mallorca (PMI), daily A321 - begins 6th August

The amount of new flights they are beginning in the middle of this mess continues to amuse me. Will this lead the carrier to an unavoidable bankruptcy or have they discovered the ultimate recipe for success?

https://www.routesonline.com/news/38/ai ... gust-2020/

Vueling closes it LCG base despite keeping the subsidies. So only a couple of days ago I was right about LCG despite Jayafe and tobsw basically saying I talk BS. Meaning that SCQ will be the only base (2 planes) in the region.

https://www.laopinioncoruna.es/coruna/2 ... 20542.html

https://www.laopinioncoruna.es/coruna/2 ... 20229.html

Valencia and Bilbao are cancelled, Barcelona, Sevilla and Palma reduced. London will be reduced and if possible operated in W pattern from Sevilla. Volotea is also leaving LCG (also to BIO); this was already planned before COVID.

So from October (even in the best case scenario) there will be Air Europa/Iberia to Madrid and Vueling to Barcelona, Seville, London and 1-weekly flight each PMI, LPA and TFN. So not that far away from what I predicted the other day.

Jayafe wrote:

The only airport in the region that got (and keeps getting) a crazy dump of public money with no conditions (as they don't have negotiation power to attract business) in the region is SCQ, and its numbers are not exactly astonishing compared to the rest of airports that play by the market rules instead of throwing around blank checks.

https://www.lavozdegalicia.es/noticia/c ... 479818.htm

In addition to Vueling closing its base in LCG (and now the city paying Vueling to fly to Barcelona, Seville and "maybe" London), the city of A Coruña is now paying Iberia for a 2nd daily flight to the exotic city of Madrid. (!). Second daily flight since now Iberia currently flies only one.

I think I was wrong with my comments about LCG and VGO going down to 500k PAX a year in the medium term once COVID disappears and the high-speed train is completed (2021/22). Maybe their natural market is more around 250k/year each. This is in line with San Sebastián (320.440 PAX in 2019), Pamplona (242.520) or Valladolid (249.216).

SeanM1997 wrote:

Wizz Air announce new routes to Spain:

London Luton (LTN):
Fuerteventura (FUE) - 2x weekly - begins 3 July 2020
Lanzarote (ACE) - 2x weekly - begins 27 October 2020
Malaga (AGP) - Daily - begins 1 July 2020
Palma (PMI) - 5x weekly - begins 1 July 2020

The UK government is imposing a new 14-day quarantine for passengers arriving from Spain.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-53540691

Coronavirus: UK brings back 14-day quarantine for Spain

I suspect this is going to have a major impact in those leisure routes.

Not just the UK...

The UK says all those returning from Spain must self-isolate for 14 days from Sunday. This includes the Canary Islands and Balearic Islands, although those destinations are not included in the UK's new general warning to avoid all but essential travel to mainland Spain.

Norway has said it will also start quarantining people arriving from Spain, while France has warned its citizens not to travel to Catalonia.

Belgium has banned travel to Huesca and Lleida, with recommendations against travel to a number of other areas in Spain.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53539015

Tui has cancelled all holidays to mainland Spain untill the 9th of August. Flights to the islands will remain for now (Balearic+Canary). Additionally, talks are in place between spanish and british governments to establish "safe corridors" to the islands, given that the virus' incidence there is much lower than the rest of Spain.

https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus- ... s-12036268

The Foreign Office has changed its advice and is now advising against all non-essential travel to Spain, the Balearic and Canary Islands, after initially only advising against travel to mainland Spain

Iberia has reached a new deal with Air Europa, which sees the latter being purchased at a price which is half of what was originally stipulated when the intentions of buying AE where announced last October.

The article also mentions, amongst other things, that Air Europa could have fined IAG with a considerable amount should they have backtracked on the decision of aquiring AE.

Link: https://cincodias.elpais.com/cincodias/ ... rsoc=TW_CC

IB starts A350 service to Quito. Are all long distance flights now A350s for IB?
https://grupo.iberia.es/news/05082020/p ... irbus-a350
(sorry link only in Spanish, the photos are nice)

himarhernandez wrote:

IB starts A350 service to Quito. Are all long distance flights now A350s for IB?
https://grupo.iberia.es/news/05082020/p ... irbus-a350
(sorry link only in Spanish, the photos are nice)

IB has retired all A346s. All the routes which were flown with those planes (UIO, MEX, BOG, LIM...) are all operated with the A350s.
Not many long haul flights anyway, but they still operate with A330s... namely MVD, HAV,...

WAMOS AIR A320 EC-NHN (msn 2164) ready for delivery @ ISL, but other sources claim "ntu" by Wamos. Any updates?

Binter will be starting 4 new routes between the Canary Islands and the peninsula next fall:
+ Gran Canaria - Barcelona (2xweek)
+ Gran Canaria - Oviedo (2xweek)
+ Tenerife N - Jerez (2week)
+ Tenerife N - Barcelona (2xweek)

aviator2000 wrote:

Binter will be starting 4 new routes between the Canary Islands and the peninsula next fall:
+ Gran Canaria - Barcelona (2xweek)
+ Gran Canaria - Oviedo (2xweek)
+ Tenerife N - Jerez (2week)
+ Tenerife N - Barcelona (2xweek)

Good news promotional fares from €29 and flights will operate by E195 aircraft.

There is a link to a Spanish article here :

Binter conectará Canarias con Barcelona, Jerez de la Frontera y Oviedo a partir de octubre

www.canarias7.es/economia/binter-conect ... t_amp.html