ARCHIVED - Corvera-Barcelona flights to begin in March

Catalunya will be just over an hour away as Vueling connect Murcia with the north-east of Spain

It has been confirmed by the president of the Murcia government, Fernando López Miras, that Vueling are to operate flights between the Region of Murcia International Airport in Corvera and Barcelona-El Prat as of 30^th March 2020.

Sr López Miras made the announcement this Wednesday, explaining that there will be three services weekly on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays during the spring and summer of next year. This marks a successful conclusion to the sustained efforts of the government and airport management company Aena to encourage Vueling to provide the connection and the first tickets will go on sale this week.

There have been numerous calls from both businesses and residents in Murcia for flights to and from Barcelona for many years, as they not only bring the region of Catalunya closer in terms of travelling time but also provide a link to a hub with direct connections all over Europe and the rest of the world. Such flights did exist at the airport in San Javier in the 1990s but were dropped due to their proving to be unprofitable, and it is to be hoped that this time round the story is a different one.

At the same time, efforts continue to re-establish flights to Madrid after they disappeared from the arrivals and departures boards at Murcia-San Javier early in 2017. So far at Corvera the domestic flights offered have been to Asturias in the north of Spain and Palma de Mallorca during the summer, and for the winter there is a route in operation to and from the Canaries.

By next summer there will be at least four domestic routes operational linking the Costa Cálida with Asturias, Barcelona, Bilbao and the Canaries, and there are still hopes that Ryanair will once again be supplying flights to and from Palma. In the light of the fall in passenger numbers during the first year of flights at Corvera after routes were switched from San Javier, this provides some encouragement that the new airport may start to see an increase in traffic in 2020.

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