North/South america to Canary Islands.

[AerRyan]

I have been looking this evening and I'm amazed to find no transatlantic flights from the Canaries to North and South America.

Considering Spanish is the main language and alot of Venezuelans, Ecuadorians living on the islands, I would have thought there would be some route to Latin America. There also seems to be no routes to the USA. I find that unusual, would they not like to holiday in the canaries?

Would these routes be viable?

[mikkie4]

MADRID airport is only a few hours from the CANARIES must be connections VIA MADRID to/from the USA

[AerRyan]

I understand that, but that's obviously an inconvenience, would there be a market for direct flights?

[jackieofalltrades]

I could see a potential for demand to the Canaries from South/Central America, but from the USA/Canada, why fly for around 8hrs when you can get equally as good weather in the Caribbean in roughly 2hrs?

[Noxegon]

There certainly used to be direct flights at one point... given a certain famous incident that occurred on March 27, 1977...

[blaggerman]

Unsurprisingly, Pan Am did not operate scheduled flights from Los Angeles to Gran Canaria. The Pan Am flight was a cruise charter.

[seafire6b]

I too was about to mention that Noxegon, and IIRC both flights were charters. Don't actually know, but think perhaps the Pan Am flight (originated LAX?) was to meet up with a cruise ship.


Edit: blaggerman beat me to it!

[GrahamK]

Air Europa recently had a 1/2 x weekly TFN-MIA flight on A332, and prior to that, someone, Conviasa(??) operated TFN-Caracas

[seafire6b]

Indeed, Miami would make sense - hub & spokes and all that!

[Hotel Tango]

The bottom line is that no there isn't a sufficient market. It makes more sense for IBERIA to encourage those limited punters to hub through Madrid and then onward to their favourite destination in North or South America.

[GrahamK]

HT

Indeed, I believe the UX TFN-MIA only lasted a year or two before being dropped.

[LNIDA]

The bottom line is that no there isn't a sufficient market.

Well that might suit Iberia, but they might have to think again, GC to South America is most definitely on Norwegians radar when the MAX arrives + the Caribbean from LPA/TFS

MAD might only be two hours away, but its two hours in the wrong direction, then aircraft change then two hours back to overfly where you started from, the market may be small, but i bet it will easily support a thrice weekly service on a 738MAX

[rpmac]

About 6 years ago I watched an aircraft leave Tenerife NORTH for Sth America direct. I cannot remember what country it was bound for but we watched many obviously South American individuals embarking on a long flight. It may have been a charter flight but I thought it was a regular scheduled service and the name of the carrier was known to me.

[airhumberside]

Air Madrid maybe? I think some of their flights to South America stopped in the Canaries en-route

[EI-BUD]

Part of the challenge here is that flying transatlantic ex the Canaries will get traffic originating or ending at the Canaries. All flights to the Canary Island are usually pricy, as it attracts mostly holiday traffic and I'd agree with earlier comments, the market is small, I.e. the population of the Canary Islands, i.e. residents. Hence limited opportunity for interlining passengers via the Canaries to US and South America.


Any carrier looking at this market will face opposition from not just Iberia, but Air Europa who feed traffic via Madrid to the mentioned destinations.

My money would be on this being a non starter...


It is on the other hand amazing the sheer level of traffic ex MAD to Latin and South America, yes there are huge links culturally, but the volume of traffic is quite impressive.

[Hotel Tango]

About 6 years ago I watched an aircraft leave Tenerife NORTH for Sth America direct. I cannot remember what country it was bound for but we watched many obviously South American individuals embarking on a long flight. It may have been a charter flight but I thought it was a regular scheduled service and the name of the carrier was known to me.

I'm not 100% sure but I think that may have been Santa Barbara Airlines (of Venezuela), now more commonly known as SBA Airlines.

[Hangar6]

I have to say the volume of traffic every day ex USA via DUB to Canaries and ITaly and Portugal amazes me, sometimes a 100 pax transit MCO DUB VCE !

[Newforest2]

When living in the Canaries in the early 1990's, I recall that there was a scheduled flight from Los Rodeos (Tenerife) to a New York airport. My memory suggests to me that it was a Spanish airline. It amused us that some Americans travelling this route were not aware what ocean they had landed in.

[LGWAlan]

SBA Airlines did operate from TFN at one point - was it on a 757? Pretty sure it was an intermediate stop and operated CCS-TFN-MAD

[sunday8pm]

The Canaries are an interesting proposition because of their location. Their population is over 2 million, with the island of Tenerife alone at approximately 1 million full time residents, although a good few of these are retired British, Germans and Spanish on full time holiday already. Las Palmas and Santa Cruz are sizable urban areas in their own right. It is worth remembering that this is not a high wage region of Spain. The financial crisis hurt the Canaries economy, which benefited enormously at the time from the construction boom.

As others have mentioned, there are many in the Canaries with Latin Amarican links, particularly to Venezuela and Cuba, but can people from these countries afford a trip East across the ocean enough to support the route?

Northern state based Americans could visit, but they don't need to visit. Florida, California, The Caribbean and Mexico are on their doorstep.

Brazil is a fast emerging market (albeit Portuguese in heritage), how long would a flight to Recife take?

[737aviator]

Didn't Norwegian announce around 6 months ago that they intended to use LPA as a hub for flights to South/Central America?

Certainly seems to be a good idea as geographically they're great, and they already have a base there so can feed the 787 operation with their 737s.

[AerRyan]

Note that Tap Portugal offer a weekly flight from Madeira to Caracas.

[dc9-32]

Since when is Madeira in the Canary Islands ?

[AerRyan]

Madeira ia a less populated, Portuguese speaking island north of the canaries that has a weekly service to Caracas. Surely that shows that there could easily be a service from the canarie?