Iberia is owned by International Airlines Group (IAG), the same company that owns British Airways, Aer Lingus, Vueling, etc. The oneworld airline has today unveiled its “2030 Flight Plan,” as it’s called, which is essentially the company’s vision through the end of the decade. There are some interesting updates here that will interest passengers, so let’s go over what we know.
Iberia plans to grow & improve passenger experience
Iberia has outlined how it plans to invest €6 billion in the coming years, in hopes of achieving annual profitability of 13.5-15%. Okay, any sort of prediction of profitability years out seems highly speculative, given how tough the industry is. So let’s focus on the passenger experience changes that the airline is planning.
Here are some of the key takeaways that customers can look forward to in the coming years:
- Iberia plans to significantly grow its long haul fleet, from 45 aircraft to 70 aircraft, in order to position Madrid (MAD) as a bigger long haul hub; this includes taking delivery of more A321XLRs and A350-900s, in addition to A330-900neos (which were recently ordered by IAG)
- In addition to increasing frequencies in existing markets, Iberia plans to launch new routes to Monterrey (MTY), Philadelphia (PHL), and Toronto (YYZ)
- Iberia plans to refresh the cabins of all of its long haul aircraft, so I suspect that means we can expect new business class seats on most A330s and A350s
- Iberia plans to open an additional lounge in Madrid’s Terminal 4, to improve the ground experience for premium passengers
Let’s see how all of these updates play out
I’m happy to see all of these updates from Iberia. It’s great to hear that Iberia is planning a new lounge at its hub, a new route to Philadelphia, and new cabins on long haul aircraft, though there’s not much in the way of details as of now. I’ll of course provide more updates as they become available.
In general, I think it’s smart for IAG to increasingly lean into Iberia for connecting traffic. Of course British Airways is IAG’s “flagship” airline, but Heathrow is slot controlled, and there’s value to routing passengers through lower cost and less restrictive hubs.
While I wish we’d see a bit more effort into growing Aer Lingus, I understand why that hasn’t historically been the priority. At least continuing to grow Iberia, especially across the Atlantic, seems like a no brainer. Iberia is finally getting a good number of new jets, between A350s, A321XLRs, and upcoming A330neos.
So for now we’ll mark this all as “developing,” but there should be a lot more on the way.
Bottom line
Iberia has outlined its plans for the coming years, as part of its “2030 Flight Plan.” In the coming years, Iberia plans to increase its long haul fleet from 45 jets to 70 jets, add at least three new routes, and introduce a new lounge in Madrid. While details are limited as of now, I look forward to learning more as time goes on…
What do you make of Iberia’s plans over the coming years?
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