Iberia Launching Madrid To Orlando Flights As Of October 2025

Hey Ben,
IAD also has a summer seasonal route.

@ Shiv Ganatra -- Good catch, thank you! Post updated. 🙂

No problem 🙂

Will this be seasonal (winter) or year round?

Lucky, any idea what went on with this EK231? It looks like it almost turned around twice and slowed down each time to around 360 miles per hour.

https://www.flightaware.com/live/flight/UAE231/history/20250324/2235Z/OMDB/KIAD

Kind of hard to believe that a major Euro flag carrier would be starting a route to a major United States leisure destination if demand for travel to the US is collapsing as some were convinced is happening just a few days ago

Keep in mind there's many wealthy Latin Americans in the Orlando area as well, many of them have family or business in Spain, so this is not just the usual sun destination leisure demand that is filling the route

Actually, Lucky, Washington Dulles, while seasonal up until now, is, as of now, scheduled to be year round, now that the A321 XLR is in the fleet. It's supposed to be 3 times weekly in winter, which is what is scheduled/ bookable.

Doesn't Iberojet already operate this route, albeit seasonal? Will this replace that flight?

Iberia also said that the A321 XLR will fly to Recife and Fortaleza in Brazil.

I don't think so, not such a big market for Iberia

Don't worry, it was all just lies. No decreased demand to the US is happening. It's just Democrats being sore losers

It's now going to be a year round route.

It's a small world after all.

Hopefully it happens. Mendacious bunch of grifters in the White House. Only “ won” by a small margin and the vast majority of the population didn’t vote for him. Avoid doing business with the USA, although I must deal with an American clients many of whom have relocated to Europe where we have rights which that bunch of dotards don’t want.

I'm actually surprised that Iberia wasn't flying to Orlando already.

It's Florida. It's Orlando. The amount of growth across all of Florida since the pandemic has been crazy.

Is there another state with the shear number of major and semi-major airports that Florida has? Orlando, Tampa, Miami, and Fort Lauderdale.

It's just crazy. Most states have one market that is booming. Florida is booming everywhere. From Jacksonville down.

Indeed the A321XLR is showing lots of promise where the airlines can serve long thin routes regularly.

Also announced are services to Fortaleza and Recife in Brazil from Madrid with the A321XLR. IB couldn't possibly fill these routes with the A330 but very much doable with the A321XLR

Well it is true.

Iberojet's flight is once-weekly and only operates on Saturdays during the summer months.

I'm loving all of the new transatlantic route additions to Orlando recently. While BA does fly to Orlando, they mostly fly to Gatwick, which offers limited connection opportunities.

BA historically only flew to MCO through Gatwick pre-covid. Then, during the pandemic, they resumed MCO flights through LHR (because they weren't operating long-haul flights from LGW at the time). Eventually, they split them between the two airports, with 1/2 daily flights in each market. Then, they made LGW 1/2x daily and LHR 1x daily. Then, the LHR flight became seasonal only operating during the summer. BA seems to change up MCO routes every summer since 2020, so I don't know if BA's LHR flight will stick. And VS has limited connection opportunities beyond LHR, so Air France and Iberia's new MCO flights are very nice additions.

No those are fact. Real facts, not "alternative/made up 'facts'".

From MCO there's very limited European connectivity. VS has no connections to Europe. BA has limited at best with serving just Gatwick. Season service on DL to Amsterdam is nice and offers good KLM service, but it's seasonal. A flight to MAD will offer tremendous connectivity all over Europe which is great. If played well, this will be a full flight constantly.

The Spanish punch above their weight at Disneyland Paris and are relatively unaffected by Trump's military demands considering their distance to Ukraine. The lack of demand to the US has mostly been from Nordic / eastern countries or Canada.
IB tries the route and will see what comes of it. No use curling up on the floor and do nothing in times of uncertainty.

"Is there another state with the shear number of major and semi-major airports that Florida has? "

(( Laughs, in Californian. ))

Rude

LOL. The EU is COLLAPSING under the ridiculous demands of the Agenda 2030-50. In the late 90s, the EU, along with the US controlled 89% of the global market. Today, the EU i at 42%. Your name suits you.