Starting on October 26, Vueling bases their second Airbus 320 in Palma with which they have increased their offer by 67%. In particular, they have increased from 372,000 seats in Winter 2013, to 625,000 seats in the current winter 2014 season. Also, they boosted the number of destinations from 8 to 14. These figures can be checked with the Flight Consulting customised airport statistics, which Winter 2014 data was just updated last week.
Preferente.com informed on Friday that Álex Cruz, CEO of the IAG member airline, visited Palma de Mallorca and said that “the main target is to attract more leisure passengers to Palma during the winter season”. For that purpose, he offered his help to the Balearic Government to make “weekend package proposals and see if we can promote the Balearic Islands through our marketing supports”. In any case he assured there is a natural demand in Palma in low season which increases Vueling’s interest. Even more, after the improvements in hotel offer in the Balearic destination.
Also, Cruz admitted that the Aena’s subsidies have influenced this interest since they offer opportunities where there weren’t any. In this point, it is worth noting that Palma airport is one of the so called Seasonal airport which are entitled to a reduction of 20% in passenger charges during the winter seasons.
For the first time, Vueling expects to end the year with over one million passengers in Palma de Mallorca Airport. They served 700,000 in 2013. The routes they are operating this winter are Valencia, Santiago de Compostela, Oviedo, Bilbao, Alicante, Barcelona, Granada, Málaga, Seville, Amsterdam, Lyon, Munich, Paris and Rome. There will 10 Palma-Barcelona flights per day, almost as many as Barcelona-Madrid operated by Vueling too.
As we had already explained, Palma airport just increased capacity but this increase will be effective from the next summer season only. However, apart from some particular peak times, Palma airport is not congested during the winter seasons.
Photo: Vueling A320 in Dubrovnik by Victor – Flickr.
