The head of Spain’s airline industry group (ALA) announced on Tuesday that airlines in Spain expect to sell 12% more seats than a year ago, as travellers try to avoid conflict zones. As airlines reroute planes to other Middle East destinations and Israel, tourist destinations like the Canary Islands are likely to see more flights. ALA President Javier Gandara said at a Madrid press conference.
He said that during the winter:
“there have been many changes in airline schedules. Many of them are due to the conflict in the Middle East And Spain has added schedules.”
A report published by the ALA on October 15 predicted that 137 million seats would be sold through March, a significant increase over the 134 millions predicted by the Spanish airport operator Aena based on data supplied by airlines in August before the Middle East conflict spread.
According to Spanish airport operators Aena, carriers booked capacity for 216 millions passengers during the summer. This was 1,6% more than summer 2019 before pandemic. A company source told us last month that summer passengers could reach 220 million.
Spain received a record number of foreign tourists between January and August, an increase of 11 percent from the same period in the year 2023. This puts it on track to have another record-breaking year, despite local discontent about the impact tourism has had in some hotspots.
“Airline capacity is growing and we think it can break last year’s record again in 2024,”
Gandara stated.
Analysts expect southern European terminals to perform better than their northern counterparts this year. Southern destinations will continue to attract more leisure travellers, whereas northern destinations will continue to attract business travellers. Aena’s latest figures show that Spanish airports had 237 millions passengers in the year up to September, which is 10 percent more than the same period 2023.
