The incipient opening of Asian countries to international travel after the pandemic has intensified the struggle to recover this coveted market. A competition waged in Spain by the airports of El Prat and Barajas, and with them, companies and institutions that orbit around them. Not in vain, air connections with Asia have a strategic economic value and whoever is best placed on the starting grid will have an advantage when it comes to consolidating flights and relations with the Far East.
El Prat has two destinations to Asia this season: Singapore and Seoul, offered by Singapore Airlines, Asiana and Korean Air (three routes in total). Before the covid crisis and the consequent air closure in Asia, Barcelona airport also had flights to three Chinese cities (Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong) and three other Pakistani cities (Islamabad, Lahore and Sialkot), with a total of 20 routes in 2019.
For its part, Madrid airport currently monopolizes connections with China, with flights to Beijing (Air China), Shanghai and Hangzhou (Iberia), as well as Male (Maldives).
Thus, the capital effect benefits Barajas to start connections with China again. The Government of the country maintains limitations on travel due to covid and its Civil Aviation department only allows national airlines to fly to one city per country, mainly the capitals, highlights from the Barcelona Air Route Development Committee. "Therefore, the return of Air China flights to Barcelona will still have to wait," they add.
The Asian market has always resisted Spain. The airlines of the continent have prioritized connections with the Anglo-Saxon countries for historical reasons and economic weight, although in recent years they had approached El Prat somewhat more intensely. “It is a difficult market because it is traditionally very restrictive, it is not unregulated and it is governed by bilateral agreements; you have to have an industrial and commercial fabric with stable quality and volume ratios for airlines to invest in these flights”, considers Pere Suau-Sánchez, professor at the UOC and Crandfield University.
One of the arguments that Aena has given to expand the Barcelona airport is precisely the strengthening of El Prat as a link with Asia, thus preparing its infrastructure to attract these long-haul flights. According to data from the airport manager, apart from the passengers who flew directly from their cities of origin to Barcelona in 2019 – the year before the air crisis – the airport received 1.8 million travelers from the Asian market indirectly . That is, they flew to El Prat with a stopover at another airport, mainly in the Middle East. Barcelona's growth margin, they have argued, was wide. China, Japan, India and South Korea were the main origins of these indirect passengers.
This does not mean – Suau-Sánchez continues – that Barcelona is disconnected from Asia. Singapore is a global hub and Doha and Dubai also act as a link with the continent. The Middle East is precisely one of the destinations that has grown the most this year in Barcelona, almost equaling the figures for Barajas (see attached graph). "El Prat is connected to three large hubs that give access to Asia, any airline will study to the millimeter the feasibility of opening direct routes with the Far East", says the UOC professor.
The Barcelona Air Route Development Committee highlights the routes with Tokyo, New Delhi and Texas (Dallas and Houston). These are the priority destinations in its strategy for El Prat, "without ruling out other opportunities that may arise from already more recovered regions, such as Latin America and the Middle East".
In total, Barcelona airport now has 42 intercontinental destinations (47 in 2019) and 71 routes (there are destinations operated by more than one airline). Its offer is led by Africa and North America, in the latter case with important economic centers that have been added to direct flights, such as Chicago, Atlanta or Washington. "The demand of the business passenger and the cruise operations of Barcelona have generated special interest among American and Canadian operators", they affirm in the Air Routes Committee.
Barajas, for its part, has 73 active destinations and 130 routes. The big difference here is made by flights to South America and the Caribbean, a market in which Madrid airport is the leader.
And now it also wants to advance in Asia, an objective that could be helped by the purchase of Air Europa by IAG. The president of Iberia, Javier Sánchez-Prieto, has repeated on more than one occasion that, if it goes ahead, the operation would allow the consolidation of the Madrid hub, increase routes to Latin America and allocate surplus aircraft to new Asian routes. A movement of this caliber would advance Barajas in the struggle for Asia.
