airport

The Spanish government sends military personnel to force air controllers back to work. Passengers are now facing further delays as airports try to clear the backlog

Up to 300.000 passengers have been left stranded by an unauthorised strike by air traffic controllers. The walkout started at the beginning of a national holiday.

The Spanish President confirms the privatisation of El Prat airport, in Barcelona, and the Barajas airport, in Madrid. José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero aims to reduce the deficit by selling 49% of AENA’s assets. AENA is the public company that manages Spanish airports

The company will partner with Spanair to offer direct flights to Sao Paulo starting in 2011. Singapore Airlines hopes to offer more direct flights from Barcelona to other South American capitals in the near future, announce its Executive Vice President of the airline.

The ski vacation tour operator plans to operate 6 flights a week from London, Manchester, Birmingham, Dublin and Belfast to the Lleida-Alguaire Airport. This new airport serves Lleida city as well as Lleida's Pyrenees.

The Catalan airline company has added 17 new flight destinations within the last year. It has also kicked off a new and improved customer loyalty programme, ‘Spanair Star’.

International passengers increased by 22.6% and passengers within Spain by 11% in comparison to the figures of October 2009. However, these positive figures contradict those of the Girona and Reus airports, where passengers dropped by 4 and 16.5% respectively due to Ryanair’s reduction of flights and its instalment at Barcelona.

25 intercontinental destinations will be available from the Barcelona airport starting the 31st of October. In addition, many flights to current destinations will increase their frequency. However, this increase is not shared with the Girona and Reus airports, which are seeing their destination variety and frequency decrease now that Ryanair is flying out of Barcelona. Besides, operating from Girona in 2011 will be 27% cheaper, as airport taxes have been modified.

Today Iberia unveiled its colossal reparation hangar, able to host the giant A-380 airplane. In addition, after 5 years of decreasing its flights from Barcelona, especially at an international level, Iberia announced that it will operate direct flights linking Sao Paulo and Miami with the Catalan capital.

Vueling will offer flights to the Lleida-Alguaire airport from 14 cities around Europe via Barcelona. The airline company Pyrenair will offer ski vacation flights from Madrid, Vigo and Lisbon.

The Catalan Government will become part of the Spanair’s board after a 10 million euro shareholders increase made possible by the public company Avança.

The Spanish Parliament has formally asked the Spanish Government to decentralise the management of the Barcelona airport and have Catalan institutions deeply involved. All the groups in the Parliament, including the ruling Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE), have voted in favour of the motion presented by the Centre-Right Catalan Nationalist Party (CiU) with the exception of the Conservative and Spanish Nationalist People’s Party (PP).

The German airline has announced today the opening of 2 new direct routes from Barcelona’s airport. In addition, Air Berlin has confirmed his aspirations to operate from the new main terminal T1. The airline’s passengers going through Barcelona has grown 14% in the last year.

Ryanair begins operating 197 flights per week in 23 destinations from Barcelona-El Prat from today on. The company is decreasing its flights from the Girona and Reus airports but, in global terms, the number of Ryanair flights to and from Catalonia is rising from 326 to 412 flights per week.

The Aragonese airline company Pyrenair will begin offering flights from the Lleida-Alguaire airport starting in January to destinations such as Vigo, Madrid, and Lisbon. Pyrenair will also operate from the Osca-Pirineus Airport.