Spanish airline Iberia has increased its passenger seat offerings in Latin America by 10 percent with new destinations and the expansion of three existing markets, a company spokesperson recently told Latin Business Daily.
“In Latin America, we are offering this year over 3.8 million seats, a 10 percent growth over 2014, mainly because of the new destinations of Cali and Medellin in Colombia, Santo Domingo (Dominican Republic), La Habana (Cuba) and Montevideo (Uruguay),” a company official said.
Another reason for the increase is an expansion of 40 percent of the seats offered in Peru and Chile.
“We are just eight months after the re-launching of our flights,” the spokesperson said. “We have expanded our offer by 40 percent. Latin America represents 52 percent, measured in seats per kilometer offered, of all the offers by Iberia so it is our main market.”
The official was not able to provide any hard sales revenue numbers for context.
“We cannot provide figures about the revenues that these routes provide to our global sales,” the official said. “What we can say is that within the routes between Latin America and Europe, a little more than one-third of all our clients start their travel in Latin America, about another third in Spain and the other third in the rest of our destinations in Europe, Africa and the Middle East. So the weight of Latin America in these routes is indeed relevant.”
Iberia has 250 weekly flights between both continents. In addition, it offers connections with 80 other destinations in Latin America through different partners in each of the countries.
The company has not made a decision whether it will open new routes to San Juan, Puerto Rico, as well as Managua, Nicaragua; Guadalajara, Mexico; and Brasilia, Brazil.
While Latin America has seen a slowdown in recent years, its economies are still growing.
“Each country in the region is living a different moment, and in Iberia we are trying to adapt our offer as best as possible to each economic situation and to the impact that this has in demand,” the official said.
The end of European visa requirements for citizens in Colombia and Peru is also expected to push travel demand.
