Barcelona Airport and its catchment area

Introduction

Barcelona Airport, an airport with an international profile

The work carried out by ARDC, since it was founded in 2005, has helped to encourage new airlines to fly to Barcelona Airport, increasing considerably the number of intercontinental flights operating out of Barcelona Airport.

North America

North America has been one the destination where the offer of routes has increased the most. Three US and one Canadian airlines have been operating five different routes during the summer of 2007.

• Delta Airlines: was the pioneer US carrier to operate a route to Barcelona. The airline flies the New York and Atlanta routes. A novelty this year, 2007, is that the Atlanta flight will be maintained all year round with four weekly flights (until now the route was shut down during the winter months).
• Continental Airlines: operates a route from Newark airport- all year round.
• US Airways: has a daily flight to Philadelphia during summer.

A recent and highlighted novelty concerns the Air Transat flight to Montreal and Toronto which have introduced Barcelona and Catalonia to the Canadian market.

Latin America

• Aerolíneas Argentinas: in 2007 their Buenos Aires flight has been increased from two to three frequencies per week.
• Avianca: operates two weekly air services with Bogotá, and connecting flights to the rest of the country and other countries in the Andean region.

Another recent novelty is Aeromexico's intention to introduce direct flights between Barcelona and Mexico DF starting in December 2007.

Asia

• Singapore Airlines: has continued its growth in Barcelona, increasing its weekly air services with Singapore from three to four frequencies.
• Regarding the Middle East, we can mention the links with Amman offered by Royal Jordanian, Damascus by Syrian Arab and Tel Aviv by Iberia and El Al.

Freighters:

• Cargolux: two weekly flights to Hong Kong.
• Jade Cargo: three weekly air services to Shenzen, the industrial centre in the south of the country.
• Emirates Sky Cargo: three weekly flights to Dubai.

Africa and the Mediterranean

This is one of the geographical areas that has seen one of the most marked increases in the number of direct air services to Barcelona:

• Royal Air Maroc: offers eleven weekly air services to Casablanca, four to Marrakesh and two to Tangier. Clickair also flies to Casablanca, Tangier and, now for the first time, to the city of Nador.
• Spanair: has begun to operate a route with Algiers, a destination that previously was only served by Air Algerie.

Other direct air links from Barcelona include Tunis, operated by Clickair and Tunis Air, Cairo and Luxor, operated by Egyptair. Other singular novelties have been Spanair's air service to Banjul in Western Africa and Clickair's air service to Malta.

Eastern Europe

The Eastern European countries are a potential market for business and tourism that, so far, have been underexploited. Here is where some of the most significant increases in air route developments have taken place.

• Clickair: flies directly to Dubrovnik, Bucharest, Budapest, Moscow, Prague and Warsaw.

On the Balkan Peninsula there are also direct flights to Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia, Sofia, the Bulgarian capital, Bucharest and Tirgu-Mures (Romania).

It is important to underline that apart from an important offer of charter flights, Barcelona has air services with two Russian cities: Moscow and Kaliningrad, also with two Ukrainian cities: Kiev and Lvov as well as with all the Baltic countries' capitals: Riga, Tallinn and Vilnius.

It is also important to mention that Turkish Airlines has strengthened its offer of flights to Istanbul, the financial and tourist capital of Turkey.