Airlines have scheduled 4.4% more seats at Spanish airports for this summer season compared to the pre-pandemic summer

The airlines have scheduled 221.8 million seats and nearly 1.3 million commercial operations in Aena’s network of airports for the summer season, which starts next Sunday 26 March and will last until 28 October 2023. This implies 4.4% more seats than those operated in the same season in 2019, before the outbreak of the pandemic, and a 1.2% increase in scheduled operations.

The airports from which the most seats are offered are Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas, with more than 44.5 million and Josep Tarradellas Barcelona-El Prat, with 37.2 million, with a recovery of 99% and 93%, respectively, compared to the data for the 2019 summer season. Thus, Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas practically recovers its 2019 operations (-1%) and Josep Tarradellas Barcelona-El Prat is slightly below (-7%).

They are followed by the airports of Palma de Mallorca, with 30.3 million (+8%); Málaga-Costa del Sol, with 17.9 million (+14%); Alicante-Elche Miguel Hernández, with 12.3 million (+4%); Ibiza, with 9.3 million seats (+11%) and Gran Canaria, with 8.8 million (+6%).

The airports with the highest increases in their summer schedules are Vitoria (+96%), San Sebastián (+51%), Zaragoza (+48%), Asturias (+36%), Santiago-Rosalía de Castro (+35%), Salamanca (+34%), Vigo (+26%), Menorca (+24%), Valencia (+24%) and Seve Ballesteros-Santander (+23%).

The airports of Aena’s network have a total of 2,950 routes scheduled for the summer season, 39 more than in the summer of 2019.

By geographic area, the Latin American and domestic markets stand out, which are above 2019 levels with an increase of 15% and 11%, respectively.

Among international routes, the Italian and French markets have increased by 10% compared to the summer of 2019, with strong growth in Morocco (+60%), Poland (+46%) and Portugal (+30%).

Programming in the summer season with the UK and Germany has almost recovered to the 2019 level, with a 96% recovery, i.e. -4% in both markets.

In any case, it is worth bearing in mind that the scheduling of seats and movements is always subject to change by the airlines.

During the two years of the pandemic, Aena provided airlines with incentives designed specifically for the COVID-19 situation. Now, with the recovery of traffic, the company is regaining a commercial incentive similar to the one it offered to airlines before the pandemic. The incentive will apply from 1 April to 31 October (summer) and from 1 November to 31 March 2024 (winter).

This scheme encourages new routes to unserved destinations, growth on routes at airports with less than 3 million passengers and growth on routes to Asia.

The incentive consists of the reimbursement of 100% of the airport passenger fare corresponding to the number of passengers of each airline opening routes to destinations not served by the airport or growing (compared to the previous equivalent season), on routes operating at airports with less than 3 million passengers or to Asia. The maximum number of passengers to be incentivised by each airline is capped by the number of passengers the airline grows at the airport and in the network as a whole.