Malaga Airport News Blog about Malaga Airport (AGP)

The German airline Lufthansa announced new direct flights from Berlin to Malaga, in addition to direct flights to Barcelona, Valencia and Palma de Mallorca.

These new flights will take place from June, since the launch of this new operation will coincide with the opening of the new airport Berlin-Brandenburg ‘Willy Brandt’. This infrastructure will allow for the first time that Lufthansa will connect four Spanish cities with non-stop flights to the German capital.

Malaga will have two weekly connections, like Valencia. To Palma de Mallorca are planned six flights a week and to Barcelona seven. In total will be offered from Spain 17 weekly flights to Berlin.

For this project, the airline positioned in the German capital 35 aircrafts of a modern fleet of the latest Airbus generation. Thus Lufthansa plans to expand its flights from Berlin to 49 destinations in Europe, Middle East and North America, among which are included these four Spanish cities.

The Andalusian airline Helitt has announced its first international flights connecting Malaga and Nador, commercial city in northern Morocco, from March 24 and from May 4, Malaga and Casablanca; also in addition there is from March 24 a route between Palma de Mallorca and Nador.

The first international route that will open on March 24 between Malaga and Nador, will take place on Saturday with departure from the capital of the Costa del Sol at 12:30 am and take off from Nador at 6 pm. The price starts from 45 Euros each way, according to reports from the company. It also retrieves a route that disappeared after the closure of Spanair and connects Palma de Mallorca with Nador. This route also takes place on Saturday, with departure from the Moroccan city at 1 pm and take off from Palma de Mallorca at 4:30 pm.

As of May 4, you can fly between Malaga and Casablanca with a frequency of four flights per week – Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays – with departure from the Spanish city at 6:50 pm and departure from Casablanca at 7 pm. The price is from 55 Euros each way.

The company has an office in Casablanca Mohammed V airport which is attached to those already in operation in Madrid, Barcelona, Malaga, San Sebastian and Melilla. On the other hand, on the occasion of Easter, the company is launching a special flight from Malaga to San Sebastian from Easter Thursday to Easter Sunday.

Easyjet flights London Southend Airport

London Southend Airport, east of London, inaugurated yesterday a new terminal that will connect London with several European destinations, including Malaga on the Costa del Sol.

The former Regional Airport, located about 65 kilometres from London, has opened a new runway, terminal and a train station that connects it in less than an hour with the centre of the British capital.

As of April 2, the low cost airline EasyJet, with 70 flights a week, will be travelling from London Southend to Amsterdam, Alicante, Barcelona, Belfast, Faro, Ibiza, Jersey, Mallorca and Malaga airport.

The new airport, owned by Stobart Group, joins the other five considered London airports: Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Luton and City. The new terminal is 43 minutes by train from London, the Olympic city 2012.

Volotea, the new airline from the creators of Vueling, will start operations on April 5 at the airport of Venice Marco Polo, flying to the Spanish destinations of Alicante, Bilbao, Santiago de Compostela and Malaga-Costa del Sol.

The low cost carrier, which was officially launched last week, will operate 14 routes from its base in Venice to European cities. Volotea offers three weekly flights on the routes Venice-Alicante, Venice-Bilbao and Venice-Malaga, and two weekly flights on the route Venice-Santiago de Compostela. No other carrier currently operates these routes.

In addition to these four destinations in Spain, the new low cost initially operates five cities in Italy (Brindisi, Cagliari, Olbia, Palermo and Reggio Calabria) and the cities Bordeaux (France), Budapest (Hungary), Krakow (Poland), Porto (Portugal) and Thessaloniki (Greece).

Tickets to fly to these destinations will be available next week, at a price of 19 Euros each way, including taxes, through all sales channels.

Volotea fleet consists exclusively of aircraft models Boeing 717, equipped with Rolls-Royce engines and 125 seats. The business model of the new airline is based on flights between medium-sized cities, avoiding the big hub airports. Thus they gain speed in their operations and a cost reduction that is transferred to their tickets.

The year 2011 has confirmed the fundamental weight of the low-cost airlines versus the traditional airlines in Andalusia. Thus, as stated in a recent report, 48% of passengers arriving at airports in the community travelled with Ryanair, EasyJet and Vueling.

Also, the low cost phenomenon dominates the activity of all airports in Andalusia. The airports which most benefited from the low cost model have been Malaga-Costa del Sol and Seville, in which these companies now account for three quarters of their volume of passengers, recording both a growth of 12.1% and 37% respectively.

During 2011 the Andalusian airports received a total of 10.1 million passengers, 7% more than in 2010. As stated in the report the levels reached in the past year “represent a recovery that began in 2010,” after two years of “important” declines as they were 2008 and 2009.