Fewer winter flight routes to the Balearics

Flight availability to Palma is down this winter

The winter season officially starts next week. | R.L.

Majorca Daily Bulletin reporterPalma24/10/2019 11:57

The Aena airports authority has announced a 0.8 million decrease in the number of airline seats that are scheduled for Balearic airport flights this winter. In this instance, winter is defined as starting on the 27th of this month and finishing on March 28.

Airlines have programmed 8.5 million seats, whereas there were 9.3 million for the last winter period.

These scheduled amounts don’t correspond to actual passenger numbers; there were 6,630,621 passengers for the three airports between the end of October 2018 and the end of March this year.

The number of routes is down 28 to 150, although Aena suggests that this figure could be subject to change.

For Palma’s Son Sant Joan, 6.4 million seats have been scheduled; 3.6 million are for Spanish air routes.

Over the last winter period there were just over five million passengers in all.

For Ibiza there is a 3.5% increase in seats to around 1.5 million, while for Minorca there is a 4.9% rise to 615,000 seats. Just 32,000 are for non-Spanish air routes, albeit that this number is up by nine per cent.

Certain other airports in Spain have lower numbers of programmed air seats. Gran Canaria is down 4.7% to 7.2 million, Tenerife South has 5.4 million - a decrease of 8.3% - and Malaga’s number has been cut 2.3% to 6.8 million.