The first JetBlue flight between the East Coast city and Madrid landed at Barajas on Tuesday, just days after Delta launched its new flight between Boston and Barcelona.
Two new direct flight routes between the United States and Spain have launched over the past days, improving the offering for passengers travelling between the two countries.
American low-cost airline JetBlue Airways on Tuesday began its venture into the Spanish market by linking Boston to Madrid, a route which Spain’s flagship carrier Iberia already operates.
The American airline’s intentions are to continue growing in Spain, starting with maintaining year-round operations to Boston Logan International Airport, which for now will operate daily until October 25th.
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For its part Iberia intends to double its service offering by 2024 with two daily flights to Boston from Madrid, making this route even more regular and hopefully lead to more competitive prices.
JetBlue’s head Marty St. George is confident that the strong demand for premium leisure activities from the United States to Spain will ensure this route continues into the 2026/2027 season.
The decision to open more destinations in Spain in the future, where the next logical route could be Madrid-New York, will depend on the success of its flights from Boston.
“If we have sustainable success in Boston, we’ll undoubtedly look for other opportunities, and connecting Boston or New York to Barcelona is also an obvious option.”
Another American airline, Delta Air Lines, has recently beaten JetBlue to it with its new Boston-Barcelona flight, with the route being launched only last Thursday.
Delta will connect Barcelona’s El Prat and Boston’s Logan airports with three weekly flights, therefore competing with Iberia, Level and Vueling, which already fly directly between the two cities.
Barcelona is one of Delta’s hubs in Europe as the airline links the Catalan capital to New York thanks to two daily flights, as well as Atlanta with ten flights a week.
Delta also operates the Madrid-New York JFK and Madrid-Atlanta routes with seven weekly flights respectively, and no signs of either stopping anytime soon.
As things stand, direct flights to the US from Spain fly to Boston, New York, Washington DC, Chicago, Miami, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Orlando, Charlotte, Dallas and Atlanta.
