Iberia has just revealed plans to launch a new route to the United States, and I don’t think this addition will shock anyone.
In this post:
Iberia adds Madrid to Orlando route with Airbus A330
As of October 26, 2025, Iberia will launch a new flight between Madrid (MAD) and Orlando (MCO). The flight will operate 4x weekly with the following schedule:
IB339 Madrid to Orlando departing 11:30AM arriving 4:45PM
IB340 Orlando to Madrid departing 6:20PM arriving 7:55AM (+1 day)
The 4,374-mile flight is blocked at 10hr15min westbound and 8hr35min eastbound. The flight will operate on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and Sundays, in both directions.
Iberia will use an Airbus A330-300 for the service, featuring 292 seats. This includes 29 business class seats, 21 premium economy seats, and 242 economy class seats (read my review of Iberia’s A330 business class).
How Orlando route fits in Iberia’s route network
Orlando will be Iberia’s tenth destination in the United States, complementing service to Boston (BOS), Chicago (ORD), Dallas (DFW), Los Angeles (LAX), Miami (MIA), New York (JFK), San Francisco (SFO), San Juan (SJU), and Washington (IAD). All of those destinations are year-round, except San Francisco and Washington, which are summer seasonal.
Orlando is of course a popular destination in the United States for those looking to go to amusement perks, and those wanting warm weather and sun. There’s not really a dominant US carrier in Orlando, as there’s substantial service from all of the “big three” US carriers, plus Southwest, low cost carriers, etc.
When it comes to long haul service, Orlando is quirky. Looking at the “big three” airline alliances, historically the only consistent, year-round transatlantic flights to Orlando have been on British Airways and Virgin Atlantic, given how much Brits love the area. As of May 2025, Air France is even launching a year-round route to Orlando.
There’s some other long haul service, ranging from Emirates’ Dubai flight, to Icelandair’s Keflavik flight, to Discover Airlines’ Frankfurt flight.
Ultimately this new service on the part of Iberia should do reasonably well, you’d think, especially as part of the transatlantic joint venture consisting of American, British Airways, Iberia, and Aer Lingus. This gives oneworld travelers a way to travel to Orlando without routing through London.
This new route is being made possible by the Airbus A321XLR, but not necessarily in the way that you’d think. This route is a bit beyond the practical range of the A321XLR. Instead, Iberia is increasingly flying the A321XLR to some existing destinations in winter (like Boston and New York), which frees up A330s to operate more new routes, like to Orlando.
Bottom line
As of October 2025, Iberia will launch a new 4x weekly flight between Madrid and Orlando using an Airbus A330. This will be Iberia’s tenth destination in the United States, and seems like a logical addition, especially for the winter season. British Airways already has a large presence in Orlando, so this will give oneworld flyers another option.
What do you make of Iberia adding service to Orlando?
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,...
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.
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
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.
It's a small world after all.
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
Well it is true.
Doesn't Iberojet already operate this route, albeit seasonal? Will this replace that flight?
Iberojet's flight is once-weekly and only operates on Saturdays during the summer months.
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
Don't worry, it was all just lies. No decreased demand to the US is happening. It's just Democrats being sore losers
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.
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.
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
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.
Will this be seasonal (winter) or year round?
Hey Ben,
IAD also has a summer seasonal route.
@ Shiv Ganatra -- Good catch, thank you! Post updated. :-)
No problem :)
It's now going to be a year round route.