Welcome to the Spanish Aviation Thread - 2022 edition. Please continue to post your news and your discussion here.

Link to previous thread:
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1456047

Singapore Airlines has acquired traffic rights on the MXP-BCN sector, after 10 years of flying between Singapore and Barcelona via Milan. From the 17th of January, it will be possible to fly Singapore's A350 in Europe between Barcelona and Milan!

Iberojet will fly a pfreighter A330 EC-LXA for Correos (Spanish Post) for 2 years. EC-LXA has been painted in a Correos livery.



https://anwphotos.webnode.es/l/correos-a330/
https://twitter.com/birrlad/status/1477732677742743553

aviator2000 wrote:

Singapore Airlines has acquired traffic rights on the MXP-BCN sector, after 10 years of flying between Singapore and Barcelona via Milan. From the 17th of January, it will be possible to fly Singapore's A350 in Europe between Barcelona and Milan!

I know the leg is international and thus, a 5th freedom route as originally described. But didn’t Singapore and the EU signed an air treaty considering the EU as a whole? (so… 8th within the EU area)

asuflyer wrote:

Iberojet will fly a pfreighter A330 EC-LXA for Correos (Spanish Post) for 2 years. EC-LXA has been painted in a Correos livery.



https://anwphotos.webnode.es/l/correos-a330/
https://twitter.com/birrlad/status/1477732677742743553

For some reason, that paint scheme makes the plane look even bigger than it is. Looks good, nice to see some color.

asuflyer wrote:

Iberojet will fly a pfreighter A330 EC-LXA for Correos (Spanish Post) for 2 years. EC-LXA has been painted in a Correos livery.



https://anwphotos.webnode.es/l/correos-a330/
https://twitter.com/birrlad/status/1477732677742743553

I wish they had included "Correos" on both sides of the fuselage. Not bad looking though.

Canarian Airways (aka Lattitude Hub) have suspended all flights from 11 January to 22 February. Ever since flights began, their sole aircraft EC-NMO has spent a LOT of time on the ground due to low demand.
I'm beginning to wonder if flights will actually resume on 22 February

davidjohnson6 wrote:

Canarian Airways (aka Lattitude Hub) have suspended all flights from 11 January to 22 February. Ever since flights began, their sole aircraft EC-NMO has spent a LOT of time on the ground due to low demand.
I'm beginning to wonder if flights will actually resume on 22 February

Plane ferried to CQM and I cant find any flights for February. A new CEO will take over...

https://www.hosteltur.com/149219_nuevo- ... rways.html
https://www.flightradar24.com/data/aircraft/ec-nmo

Interesting development in the Canary Islands.


Passenger seaplanes will return to the islands more than 50 years later with a route between Tenerife and Gran Canaria.

Surcar Airlines plans to resume the use of seaplanes in Spain starting next fall.

https://rtvc.es/surcar-airlines-operara ... del-otono/

aviator2000 wrote:

Singapore Airlines has acquired traffic rights on the MXP-BCN sector, after 10 years of flying between Singapore and Barcelona via Milan. From the 17th of January, it will be possible to fly Singapore's A350 in Europe between Barcelona and Milan!

Any chance of having Singapore Airlines in Mad? Maybe IB?

OA260 wrote:

Interesting development in the Canary Islands.


Passenger seaplanes will return to the islands more than 50 years later with a route between Tenerife and Gran Canaria.

Surcar Airlines plans to resume the use of seaplanes in Spain starting next fall.

https://rtvc.es/surcar-airlines-operara ... del-otono/

Isla Air announced a long time ago they would launch a seaplane service between the Balearic islands. Apart from a website, nothing much seems to have happened. There was also a planned seaplane operator in Greece, Hellenic Seaplanes, but after almost 9 years, it is still yet to launch. Eos was going to launch a seaplane service in Italy but this has gone very quiet. There was a seaplane service based in Glasgow in Scotland, but this has become more about expensive joy rides than about carrying pax from A to B

I agree that Nordic Seaplanes, the partner of Surcar, is much more reputable than in the case of Isla Air, but I'm still a bit dubious as to whether this will really happen.

aviator2000 wrote:

Singapore Airlines has acquired traffic rights on the MXP-BCN sector, after 10 years of flying between Singapore and Barcelona via Milan. From the 17th of January, it will be possible to fly Singapore's A350 in Europe between Barcelona and Milan!

What took them so long if they flew before the BCN-GRU sector 5th freedom for quite some time?

lesfalls wrote:

aviator2000 wrote:

Singapore Airlines has acquired traffic rights on the MXP-BCN sector, after 10 years of flying between Singapore and Barcelona via Milan. From the 17th of January, it will be possible to fly Singapore's A350 in Europe between Barcelona and Milan!

What took them so long if they flew before the BCN-GRU sector 5th freedom for quite some time?

I have no idea, although I believe they had never applied for it until now.

SQ will fly 3x per week, up against a combination of Easyjet, Ryanair and Vueling who fly 8 times per day from Malpensa (plus daily from Linate and 3x daily from Bergamo)
MXP-BCN takes less than 1h30... so difficult to convince people to pay extra for a quality airline on such a short flight - meal service even in business class will likely be rather limited, and no time for a film on seatback TV

Yes, it's a bit more revenue for SQ... but is the extra money worth the hassle of all the extra costs like handling, security, etc ?

davidjohnson6 wrote:

SQ will fly 3x per week, up against a combination of Easyjet, Ryanair and Vueling who fly 8 times per day from Malpensa (plus daily from Linate and 3x daily from Bergamo)
MXP-BCN takes less than 1h30... so difficult to convince people to pay extra for a quality airline on such a short flight - meal service even in business class will likely be rather limited, and no time for a film on seatback TV

Yes, it's a bit more revenue for SQ... but is the extra money worth the hassle of all the extra costs like handling, security, etc ?

The airline must have made their numbers - perhaps with the reduced demand from covid it made more sense. After all, I believe all passengers had to "deboard" the planes at Malpensa and "reboard". Plus, the airline already has its own staff at both airports.

However, I do agree that they will have difficulties on the route with such low prices and big competition... I believe most of the flights will be filled with Avgeeks

davidjohnson6 wrote:

SQ will fly 3x per week, up against a combination of Easyjet, Ryanair and Vueling who fly 8 times per day from Malpensa (plus daily from Linate and 3x daily from Bergamo)
MXP-BCN takes less than 1h30... so difficult to convince people to pay extra for a quality airline on such a short flight - meal service even in business class will likely be rather limited, and no time for a film on seatback TV

Yes, it's a bit more revenue for SQ... but is the extra money worth the hassle of all the extra costs like handling, security, etc ?

I did SQ 5th freedom ATH - IST in J when they operated it . They managed champagne and canapés for a 50 min duration . Quite impressive .

I guess it works for them as I gather they allow many tour groups to buy one ticket from the Far East all on SQ and take in Spain and Italy. Then they will pick up some point to point along with some Anetters . I guess taking all things into account it works.

aviator2000 wrote:

davidjohnson6 wrote:

SQ will fly 3x per week, up against a combination of Easyjet, Ryanair and Vueling who fly 8 times per day from Malpensa (plus daily from Linate and 3x daily from Bergamo)
MXP-BCN takes less than 1h30... so difficult to convince people to pay extra for a quality airline on such a short flight - meal service even in business class will likely be rather limited, and no time for a film on seatback TV

Yes, it's a bit more revenue for SQ... but is the extra money worth the hassle of all the extra costs like handling, security, etc ?

The airline must have made their numbers - perhaps with the reduced demand from covid it made more sense. After all, I believe all passengers had to "deboard" the planes at Malpensa and "reboard". Plus, the airline already has its own staff at both airports.

However, I do agree that they will have difficulties on the route with such low prices and big competition... I believe most of the flights will be filled with Avgeeks

Passengers originating in BCN don’t currently leave the plane at MXP during the stop-over. It’d be a shame if that changed with the 5th freedom as a frequent flier of this route from BCN.

alexwm wrote:

aviator2000 wrote:

davidjohnson6 wrote:

SQ will fly 3x per week, up against a combination of Easyjet, Ryanair and Vueling who fly 8 times per day from Malpensa (plus daily from Linate and 3x daily from Bergamo)
MXP-BCN takes less than 1h30... so difficult to convince people to pay extra for a quality airline on such a short flight - meal service even in business class will likely be rather limited, and no time for a film on seatback TV

Yes, it's a bit more revenue for SQ... but is the extra money worth the hassle of all the extra costs like handling, security, etc ?

The airline must have made their numbers - perhaps with the reduced demand from covid it made more sense. After all, I believe all passengers had to "deboard" the planes at Malpensa and "reboard". Plus, the airline already has its own staff at both airports.

However, I do agree that they will have difficulties on the route with such low prices and big competition... I believe most of the flights will be filled with Avgeeks

Passengers originating in BCN don’t currently leave the plane at MXP during the stop-over. It’d be a shame if that changed with the 5th freedom as a frequent flier of this route from BCN.

Oh, my bad, I wasn't aware of that. I just thought it was common practice on all fifth freedom routes. On Emirate's DXB-BCN-MEX all passengers must leave the plane in Barcelona.

Plus Ultra will, due to COVID19, cancel all flights to Ecuador.

New destinations for summer 2022 will be Bogotá, Cartagena de Indias, Santo Domingo and according to the airline Malabo.

https://www.hosteltur.com/lat/149424_ec ... aquil.html

debonair wrote:

Plus Ultra will, due to COVID19, cancel all flights to Ecuador.

New destinations for summer 2022 will be Bogotá, Cartagena de Indias, Santo Domingo and according to the airline Malabo.

https://www.hosteltur.com/lat/149424_ec ... aquil.html

Malabo was IBs most profitable route when they operated it. There is another startup airline that recently started that serves the market 1x weekly. Ceita mismanages the potential and yield of the route. Makes sense they’re going after it.

OA260 wrote:

Interesting development in the Canary Islands.


Passenger seaplanes will return to the islands more than 50 years later with a route between Tenerife and Gran Canaria.

Surcar Airlines plans to resume the use of seaplanes in Spain starting next fall.

https://rtvc.es/surcar-airlines-operara ... del-otono/

Surprised nobody has tried this yet. Seems like should get a lot of takers assuming they can get the same subsidies as other Canary air services.

lesfalls wrote:

There is another startup airline that recently started that serves the market 1x weekly.

Which company you are talking about?!

Canarian AIrways / One Airways / Lattitude Hub's aircraft, EC-NMO was used by Atlantic Airways in the Faeroe Islands until April 2021. The aircraft has now returned to Vagar in the Faeroe Islands, and Canarian Airways are not showing availability for any flights in the next 6 months on their website
While one should never say never.... it's looking like Canarian Airways / Lattitude Hub won't be returning to the skies any time soon

easyJet has announced Madrid-Porto (with an OPO-based plane).

Nothing exotic about this, but this is (no joke) easyJet's first new route in MAD in the last 10 years.

This summer easyJet will have 9 routes out of MAD:

Basel/Mulhouse, Bristol, Edinburgh, Geneva, Lisbon, Liverpool, London–Gatwick, Paris–Charles de Gaulle, Porto

At its heyday in 2008 (14 years ago ) easyJet had 25 routes.

Asturias, Basel/Mulhouse, Berlin-Schönefeld, Bristol, Bucharest-Băneasa, Casablanca, Edinburgh, Fuerteventura, Geneva, Ibiza, La Coruna, Lanzarote, Lisbon, Liverpool, London-Gatwick, London-Luton, Lyon, Marrakesh, Milan-Malpensa, Palma de Mallorca, Paris Charles de Gaulle, Paris-Orly, Rome-Ciampino, Tangier, Toulouse.

They closed their base in 2012 (during Spain's crisis) and completely neglected MAD for a decade. Like it didn't exist. They just kept some basic routes (some of them with no competition, specially no Ryanair competition) and that it is.

Could this OPO route be a test to open new routes out of MAD and maybe a base in the future?

Volotea to launch:
Bilbao - Athens 2/week
San Sebastian - Malaga 2/week
San Sebastian - Sevilla 2/week

aviator2000 wrote:

Volotea to launch:
Bilbao - Athens 2/week
San Sebastian - Malaga 2/week
San Sebastian - Sevilla 2/week

How is the codeshare with A3 helping fill BIO-ATH? Connecting traffic?

lesfalls wrote:

aviator2000 wrote:

Volotea to launch:
Bilbao - Athens 2/week
San Sebastian - Malaga 2/week
San Sebastian - Sevilla 2/week

How is the codeshare with A3 helping fill BIO-ATH? Connecting traffic?

Probably. The Greek islands are probably the most popular place to go on holiday right now in Europe.

lesfalls wrote:

aviator2000 wrote:

Volotea to launch:
Bilbao - Athens 2/week
San Sebastian - Malaga 2/week
San Sebastian - Sevilla 2/week

How is the codeshare with A3 helping fill BIO-ATH? Connecting traffic?

Advance bookings for Greece are very strong according to airlines and tour operators. It should be a bumper year.

OA260 wrote:

lesfalls wrote:

aviator2000 wrote:

Volotea to launch:
Bilbao - Athens 2/week
San Sebastian - Malaga 2/week
San Sebastian - Sevilla 2/week

How is the codeshare with A3 helping fill BIO-ATH? Connecting traffic?

Advance bookings for Greece are very strong according to airlines and tour operators. It should be a bumper year.

Vueling launched BIO-Athens in 2013 and ran it for a few summers, and Santorini in 2015

https://www.deia.eus/bizkaia/2012/10/17 ... 52514.html

https://agenttravel.es/noticia-019920_V ... orini.html

Interesting Air Nostrum service from Barcelona to Kittila in Northern Finland on February 10th, 2022:

- IB2059 BCN 06.05 - KTT 10.50 CRJ-1000 EC-MNQ - Flying time 3hr50min. distance 3.250km

https://www.flightradar24.com/ANE2059/2ac4937f

It looks like Iberia will start receiving A350s again! Great news for Madrid as the Qatar-Airbus argument could have really negatively impacted the Spanish Hub.

https://twitter.com/novedadesaereas/sta ... 7072369665

KUWAIT will start KWI-AGP-MAD-KWI A330-200 soon. Any chance we will see 5th freedom between AGP and MAD?!

debonair wrote:

KUWAIT will start KWI-AGP-MAD-KWI A330-200 soon. Any chance we will see 5th freedom between AGP and MAD?!

Unlikely, based on what happened when Kuwait Airways were flying between London and New York. Yes, the USA and Spain are different countries with their own laws, but I doubt the Kuwaitis would want a similiar court case
https://onemileatatime.com/kuwait-airways-jfk/

davidjohnson6 wrote:

debonair wrote:

KUWAIT will start KWI-AGP-MAD-KWI A330-200 soon. Any chance we will see 5th freedom between AGP and MAD?!

Unlikely, based on what happened when Kuwait Airways were flying between London and New York. Yes, the USA and Spain are different countries with their own laws, but I doubt the Kuwaitis would want a similiar court case
https://onemileatatime.com/kuwait-airways-jfk/

They didn’t quit their 5th freedom within Europe because of that (excluding the JFK-LHR situation). They cancelled them as they wanted to only offer direct flights.

This would also be 7th freedom as its a domestic sector. Very rare that airlines get permission for it but who know. Maybe Spain is lenient (they didn’t give it to ET when they flew ADD-MAD-BCN).

Ryanair announces 4 new routes from Spain, due to start within a month (end of March):

Santiago SCQ - Brussels CRL
Santiago SCQ - Paris BVA
Reus REU - Leeds LBA
Girona GRO - Shannon SNN

debonair wrote:

KUWAIT will start KWI-AGP-MAD-KWI A330-200 soon. Any chance we will see 5th freedom between AGP and MAD?!

It's a technical stop, No ticketing from AGP to MAD.

Monty1988 wrote:

debonair wrote:

KUWAIT will start KWI-AGP-MAD-KWI A330-200 soon. Any chance we will see 5th freedom between AGP and MAD?!

It's a technical stop, No ticketing from AGP to MAD.

Where is it bookable?

lesfalls wrote:

Monty1988 wrote:

debonair wrote:

KUWAIT will start KWI-AGP-MAD-KWI A330-200 soon. Any chance we will see 5th freedom between AGP and MAD?!

It's a technical stop, No ticketing from AGP to MAD.

Where is it bookable?

Kuwait only.

aviator2000 wrote:

It looks like Iberia will start receiving A350s again! Great news for Madrid as the Qatar-Airbus argument could have really negatively impacted the Spanish Hub.

https://twitter.com/novedadesaereas/sta ... 7072369665

Announced on IB's webpage. Any idea what they mean by new cabin configurations?

https://engine.rhapsodymedia.com/page-t ... ad9#page/2

They also are mentioning new uniforms and service onboard. Anyone has any information on their "Iberia Next Chapter" initiatives?

WOW! Something new, PLUS ULTRA is now selling tickets as credit - passengers are now eligible to buy tickets and pay in 3 instalments...

https://premierplus.net/PlazosPlus/Comprar

KU’s MAD service becomes direct (without AGP stop) effective September 16th.

3x weekly on an A320neo.

Why does KU need to stop in AGP for a flight to MAD? Especially with a 332

a320fan wrote:

Why does KU need to stop in AGP for a flight to MAD? Especially with a 332

Talking to the GSA for KU here in MAD and he was saying the flights are already sold out primarily destination AGP both in C and Y.

Seems they want to get on the MAD market as a sign that they serve the market while their main O&D service starts in September.

Summer in the end is the time of the year when it comes to an increase in passenger traffic.

debonair wrote:

WOW! Something new, PLUS ULTRA is now selling tickets as credit - passengers are now eligible to buy tickets and pay in 3 instalments...

https://premierplus.net/PlazosPlus/Comprar

Very innovative, reminds me of AA's program that they had (not sure if they still do). I like it and wish they would fly to the US

himarhernandez wrote:

debonair wrote:

WOW! Something new, PLUS ULTRA is now selling tickets as credit - passengers are now eligible to buy tickets and pay in 3 instalments...

https://premierplus.net/PlazosPlus/Comprar

Very innovative, reminds me of AA's program that they had (not sure if they still do). I like it and wish they would fly to the US

They are obviously targeting all those low-income Colombian/Peruvian/Dominican/Ecuatorian VFR that work in Spain as server, caregivers or cleaners and might earn 1000 euro tops a month. Hard for that people to save for a 600-700-800 EUR return ticket back home.

Are Plus Ultra charging extra for this payment plan ? On non-refundable fares, the option to default on outstanding payments, having paid only part of the fare makes the ticket into something partially refundable. I'm therefore wondering what Plus Ultra will do to prevent what revenue people would consider as tariff abuse.

davidjohnson6 wrote:

Are Plus Ultra charging extra for this payment plan ? On non-refundable fares, the option to default on outstanding payments, having paid only part of the fare makes the ticket into something partially refundable. I'm therefore wondering what Plus Ultra will do to prevent what revenue people would consider as tariff abuse.

It says in their website that there are no extra fees or interest for the service.

TAAG aiming to start LAD-MAD:

(In French)

https://www.newsaero.info/airlines/taag ... ?true=5007

Saudi’s plans for Summer 2022:

NEW ROUTE: JED-BCN, 2nd JUL-27 AUG 2x weekly 787-9

JED-AGP-MAD-JED, 30 JUN-28 AUG 2x weekly 787-9

NEW ROUTING: RUH-AGP-MAD-RUH, 30 JUN-28 AUG 2x weekly 787-9

NEW ROUTE: RUH-BCN, 30 JUN-27 AUG 2x weekly 787-9

Source: https://aeroroutes.com/eng/220329-svns22intl

(Ps: Airlineroutes 2.0 is back!)