Iberia has just announced its newest transatlantic route. While it wasn’t necessarily one we were told to expect, I also don’t think it’s terribly surprising.
Continue reading: Iberia Launching Madrid To Newark A321XLR Flights As Of March 2026
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
Good to see more variety at EWR and a nice option over the 30+ year old 76s UA sends across the pond on many routes, including MAD.
Nice to see another route to MAD from the NY area. This will likely push DL off the market out of NYC entirely to MAD, but also to BCN. Delta is very weak to Spain and its TATL network is a big money looser it seems.
Not to preempt Tim Dunn here, but Delta is not leaving NYC>Spain lol
It's a large market and DL can connect passengers over JFK, at worst.
And I doubt there's anyone in the world that thinks Delta is losing money across the Atlantic.
Some U.S. based passengers would do well to note that not all ‘pond-hoppers’ start their journey in that country.
Also, many European carriers provide a much better ‘pond-hopping’ experience than their U.S. counterparts. Albeit minus the points incentive important to some flyers.
it's also worth noting that US-EU treaties require that new flights supersede slot and schedule controls by the FAA - which means that these new international flights at EWR effectively reduce UA's ability to operate as many flights - or add congestion if UA maintains its same level of schedule.
EWR has long had considerably less int'l service than JFK; the growth of foreign carrier service will reduce UA's control at the airport.
Most European airlines including IB will have more seats on their 321XLRs than AA and UA so the economics will work better.
Are you going to say every new A321XLR route won’t be “a financial game changer for the airline” 🙂
"... so the economics will work better."
Trying to understand this your last statement, as it's to my knowledge that (using AA configuration) if they can get loads of 90% across all cabins versus 90% on IB configuration, the AA aircraft will generate the most revenue across similar route and pricing (the load percentage could be lowered even to 85% and might still have a slight advantage to IB configuration with 85% load).
The only issue for UA and AA will be getting higher loads across their premium cabins.
Narrowbody aircraft simply have higher unit costs per seat mile than widebody aircraft and that increases even further when a 3rd pilot is required - which is the case for most flights from continental Europe to the US.
AA and UA are uniquely believing that they can get a substantial premium on their longhaul XLRs over what they get now - and that is hard to believe will happen, competing with other airline widebodies both on nonstops and on connections. And as much as some people want to believe otherwise, a fairly high percentage of passengers on TATL flights are connecting on one end or another - which means the revenue has to be divided between two segments.
IB and EI are both using about 30 more seats on their XLRs/NEOs; B6 is not even an example of success on their TATL flights.
I do not believe that the AA and UA models for using their XLRs will work financially; AA hasn't been consistently profitable across the Atlantic for years and they think that downgauging to smaller aircraft will help - but the problem is that AA can't get the revenue outside of LHR that DL and UA get. UA flies alot of seasonal flights on narrowbodies which probably do work but TATL fares collapse for 4-6 months. Unless UA intends to put those planes on domestic routes for half the year and offer an inconsistent product (you can't use an international product for half the year and a domestic product for half the year and develop any kind of price premium), the economics won't work for UA either.
It’ll be interesting to see how the swap equipment in and out based on demand. JFK is down to a 321xlr and a 330 now, but back to a 330 and 350 for the spring/summer
"UA's ability to operate as many flights - or add congestion if UA maintains its same level of schedule."
UA isn't operating many 23:55pm departure flights out of EWR.
Yep it's pretty much copy and paste opinions.
It's weird that he also doesn't factor in the lower operating costs too.
@Tim
You didn't necessarily answer my question. I didn't make mention of widebody.
I'm asking how the economics will work better for European carriers with more seats overall and less premium seats compared to what American carriers are doing.
"Unless UA intends to put those planes on domestic routes for half the year and offer an inconsistent product (you can't use an international product for half the year and a domestic product for half the year..."
It's RUMOURED that the leased CFM-equipped A321NEO will be configured similarly to the XLR and will be used for domestic and international route (regional routes but not transatlantic) to LATAM region
Air India reconfigured B787-8 could have between 20-24 seats in business class
28 seats in premium economy.
And about 240-250 seats in total.
There are pictures of the cabin currently making rounds on X and other platforms.
If La Compagnie is able to do ORY-EWR with normal A321s (not XLR) which they now have had for several years (are they even NEOs?), why does Iberia need the XLR ? The distances are the same.
Admittedly La Compagnie's load is much lighter in terms of passengers (only 76, all Business), but carriers with full passenger loads regularly fly non-XLR A321s between NYC and the western-most parts of Europe..
No one ACTUALLY gives a crap about the age of UA (or anyone's) aircraft. They have some of the newest interiors in the fleet, and that's all 99% of passengers are going to know, much less care, about.
Happy to see more IB routes (and thus more flights on which I might find award availability!) but EWR's older terminal(s) are disgracefully obsolete. Not a fun departure location.
I wish Iberia or other airline to start Madrid - Houston. Hard to imagine Houston not having a single flight to Spain given the diversity of Houston.
and the issue is simply that any internationally configured airplane has to be usable year round or you have excess internationally configured capacity that you can't monetize.
If the XLRs are used on domestic flights for half of the year, the other half of the year they have standard domestic configured aircraft - which means it is difficult to get a revenue premium in the market. The transcons work with premium pricing for multiple airlines because the same type of product is there year round.
DL and UA have figured out how to shift TATL widebody capacity to the S. Pacific and N. Africa during the northern winter but you can't dump lots of capacity into the N. Atlantic for the summer and then put it someone place that can't support that much capacity for only six other months per year.
Steven,
your point on the flight timings are valid. Air France has some similarly timed flights from the NE but this is one of the latest flights from the NE to continental Europe.
that could be an advantage for these flights.