02/12/2012 00:00
TW
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Palma.—The big news in the airline industry this week was that the Spanish low cost carrier Vueling, which is 45 percent owned by IAG (British Airways/Iberia) will be relaunching the daily service from Heathrow to Palma from March.

Since British Midland cancelled its service back in 2009, tens of thousands of British holiday makers and home owners - not to mention business in particular the real estate sector - have been desperate for an airline to step in and revive the route and now Vueling have very smartly filled the slot.

London-based Vueling CEO, Alex Cruz, said: “We are delighted to be bolstering our London Heathrow services with this popular route to Palma.
Hugely welcomed “This is going to be hugely welcomed by the strong expat community and together with the introduction of London Gatwick–Barcelona flights, also commencing at the end of March, our expanded services from the UK capital form a key part of what will be a fourth consecutive year of growth.” And, British Airways hopes to have taken total control of Vueling within weeks of the new service taking off and Vueling will then replace Iberia's low cost airline Iberia Express.

However, in response, British Airways's CityFlyer announced that it is to increase its flights from London City Airport to Palma to six services per week over the winter and possibly even more during the Summer.

The CityFlyer service to Palma, one of its few ‘leisure' routes has proved extremely popular and the airline is expanding its connections with the Balearics, into Ibiza it will be operating ten flights per week and they are now looking at Minorca.

But, while having a new daily flight from Heathrow is the jewel in Majorca's crown, Norway's low cost carrier Norwegian.com, the second largest airline in Scandinavia, has also announced that from March next year, it will also be flying out of Gatwick to Palma. Norwegian serves Europe, North Africa and the Middle East for both business and leisure markets. In total the airline operates 300 routes to 115 destinations in 30 countries on three continents.

Gatwick
But, Norwegian's largest non-Scandinavian operation is to London Gatwick with up to 14 daily round-trips.
The recent news of an increase in regular scheduled flights from the UK to Palma has been welcomed by the tourism industry and the business community as a whole.

Now the airlines just hope that Majorca's tourist industry will show its gratitude and cooperate with the carriers to make it all worth their while.