Over 10 million airline seats to the Canary Islands planned for summer 2022

Published on January 23, 2022
Canary IslandsNews from Canary Islands
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The first indicators of connectivity for the summer reflect a clear recovery for the Canary Islands to exceed pre-Covid levels. At the moment, the supply of air seats for the summer season, which begins in April and lasts until October, is 3.7% higher than in the summer of 2019.

This was announced today by the Minister of Tourism, Industry and Commerce of the Government of the Canary Islands, Yaiza Castilla, at Fitur 2022, which is being held these days in Madrid. 

There are 10,338,049 air seats scheduled for the Canary Islands for this summer season, 369,366 more than in the summer of 2019.

In the absence of knowing part of the programming from the peninsula, which usually takes place with less notice, the minister drew attention to the fact that "the growth of air supply for the summer comes from the diversification of markets, with the largest increases coming from Italy, The Netherlands, France, Portugal and Austria”. 

In reference to these markets, Austria is the one that experiences the most striking growth, with 108.9% more air seats, followed by Italy, with a growth of 81.8%, and the Netherlands (+54.7%). ), France (+53.9%) and Portugal (+50%).

However, in absolute terms, it is expected that the United Kingdom will once again be the main issuing market of the Canary Islands in 2022, after losing that leadership in the last two years due to the restrictive measures on mobility. For this summer, there are 3,307,890 air seats scheduled from the United Kingdom to the Canarian airports, which is 135,567 more than in the same period of 2019, that is, 4.3% more.

Germany also remains the third most important market for the islands in the summer season, with a slight decrease of 0.6% and 1,412,070 seats. As for the Scandinavian countries, all of them remain below 2019 in terms of regular air connectivity.

Spanish airlines

Regarding the peninsular market, the minister held a meeting with Javier Gándara, president of the Association of Air Lines (ALA), who told Castilla that the prospects are positive, as they estimate that connectivity will recover this summer the levels of activity and demand from the pre-covid era.

In addition, Gándara explained that Spanish airlines closed 2021 with an average aircraft occupancy of 70%, a figure that he valued very positively considering that the average percentage of the pre-Covid era was 85%.

Vueling also announced four new routes to the Canary Islands as a novelty at Fitur: La Palma-Paris, Amsterdam-Tenerife-South, Amsterdam-Lanzarote and Copenhagen-Lanzarote.

Over 2.5 million air seats planned from the UK by Jet2

Based on the information provided in the meeting held with the Regional Ministry of Tourism,  Jet2 is positioned this year even more like one of the main companies that will bring tourists to the islands.

Representatives from Jet2 stated in the meeting held in Fitur that since removing the requirement of pre-departure tests before returning home, the demand for the Canary Islands archipelago has skyrocketed.

Those responsible for Jet2, Ian Doubtfire, director of Sustainability and Business Development, and Janice Mather, head of Airports and Tourism Organizations, assured that this year they will offer 25% more air seats to the Canary Islands compared to 2019, with 2.5 million seats planned, out of which 1.3 million have been scheduled for the entire summer season, 23% more than in the same period of the pre-pandemic year. In total there are 204 flights a week with the islands of Gran Canaria, Lanzarote, Fuerteventura and Tenerife for the summer months.

In addition, and in line with the decarbonization strategy promoted by the Ministry through the Canarias Destino strategy, Jet2 announced that they will voluntarily offset CO2 emissions from trips to the archipelago as of January 1, with an estimated investment of one million pounds.

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