Iberia celebrates today the 95th anniversary of its first commercial operation.
On 14 December 1927, the airline’s first flight between Barcelona and Madrid carried ten passengers in a Rohrbach Ro VIII Roland three-engine aircraft. The three-and-a-half hour journey became the first precursor to the Puente Aéreo (Air Shuttle) between Spain’s two largest cities, which today «continues to be the greatest commitment to connectivity and corporate traffic», according to the company in a press release.
Currently, Iberia maintains a frequency of 86 weekly flights and up to fifteen daily operations on this route. The airline remarked that it will offer nearly 700.000 seats between Madrid-Barajas (MAD) and Barcelona-El Prat (BCN) airports during the current winter season, which will run until next 26 March. Wednesdays will be the days with the highest number of services available.
In this way, and thanks to the use of larger capacity aircraft such as the Airbus A320neo, it will exceed its pre-pandemic capacity. Between 2020 and 2021, during the peak of mobility restrictions for sanitary reasons, Iberia maintained connectivity between the two cities with a reduced but stable schedule. Flight schedule then began to gradually recover and reached 68 weekly flights last winter.
The Puente Aéreo
The Puente Aéreo (Air Shuttle) between Madrid and Barcelona was inaugurated in 1974 and became the first service of its kind in Europe. Iberia continued to expand its offer and optimise its operation on the route under the motto «arrive and fly»: today, the company allows users to check in up to twenty minutes before departure (a figure considerably lower than that required on other routes) and offers greater flexibility of connections in the event of unforeseen circumstances.
