Iberia grows in Africa

Africa has become one of Iberia’s key objectives, and in 2011 the Spanish airline is launching two new routes to the continent –Madrid-Rabat and Madrid-Luanda– for a total of twelve cites, including Algiers, Oran, Cairo, Malabo, Casablanca, Marrakech, Tangier, Rabat, Lagos, Dakar, Johannesburg, and Luanda.

Each week the Iberia Group directly operates a total of 122 flights between Africa and Spain. Under code sharing agreements with other airlines, it reaches another 13 African cities.

Iberia plans to open up new routes and to increase its services to existing destinations, such as Malabo, in Equatorial Guinea, and Oran, in Algeria.

Iberia in Morocco and Angola

Iberia now serves all of Morocco’s four largest cities: Casablanca, Marrakech, Tangier, and, since July 1, the capital Rabat, with return flights from Madrid on Mondays and Fridays. It operates a total of up to 66 flights per week between Spain and Morocco. In 2010 Iberia carried nearly 222,000 people on its Spain-Morocco routes, and this year is offering a total of some 295,000 seats. The Madrid-Rabat connection is amply justified by the growing trade between the two countries which face each other across the Mediterranean.

Thanks to raw materials extraction, and especially petroleum, of which production now outstrips that of Nigeria, the Angolan economy is growing at a fast pace and new infrastructures are being built. The Madrid-Luanda service beginning on October 28 will offer the first non-stop flights between Spain and the former Portuguese colony.

Airbus A340/300s will be used for the Luanda flight, scheduled to facilitate connections with Iberia’s almost 100 destinations in Europe and the Americas. Iberia expects to carry some 3,000 people each month on this route, of whom some 70% will originate in other European countries and other Spanish cities.

More flights to Malabo and Oran

As of the end of August, Iberia will add a sixth weekly return flights between Madrid and Malabo. The Tuesday flight will increase weekly seat supply to the capital of Spanish-speaking Equatorial Guinea by 220. Last year Iberia carried some 41,200 passengers on this route, an increase of 7.7% from 2009. Nearly 50% of them flew on to other destinations, including São Paulo, Barcelona, Cairo, Lisbon, and Valencia.

September 16 will mark the first anniversary of Iberia’s service between Madrid and Oran, in Algeria. The company now plans to increase the number or weekly flight between the two cities from two to three. Iberia now operates a total of 122 flight per week to and from African cit