Tenerife has 4,155,575 flight seats scheduled to the island with airlines this winter, which is the highest figure in its history, and 300,000 more seats than in the same season of 2018-2019, when the previous high was reached. This summer was also a record for the island, with 5.1 million, which was 126,259 more than in 2019, reports the Tenerife Cabildo in a new report.
The president, Pedro Martín, said they value the work carried out by the Turismo de Tenerife team at the Routes World fair, the most important fair in the world for confirming flight seats to the island, held in Las Vegas.
In addition, he said that although Tenerife already has a wide direct connection with 110 routes from 25 different tourist markets, this fair has explored the possibility of connecting the island more easily with different cities in America, Canada, and the Middle East.
"This would mean that a passenger can travel to the island, from some points of origin with which Tenerife does not have a direct connection, with a minimum wait at a connecting airport, and without the need to check their luggage twice," said Martin.
The island's Director of Tourism, Laura Castro, emphasizes that this type of strategy, in which Tenerife is "working intensely", will mean "a significant reduction" in waiting time at airports for travellers, who "on many occasions have to spend hours and even nights in terminals to continue their trip to Tenerife”.
She also confirmed that conversations have been held with Icelandair to increase connections through Reykjavík airport, where numerous travellers arrive from the United States and Canada. "The goal is that the final destination for more of these travellers is Tenerife," she added.
Similar conversations have been held with the TAP Portuguese airline and Lisbon airport, and have begun with different connection points in the Middle East.
The CEO of Turismo de Tenerife, David Pérez, details that during the World Routes fair, his team held fifteen meetings with airports and airlines to continue improving connectivity and the positioning of Tenerife as a destination.
“These meetings will allow us to continue working on economic diversification in the field of business, and on the possibilities of increasing routes for the benefit of residents who wish to travel to destinations in the United States, Canada, or the Middle East,” he said.
During Routes World 2022, the Tenerife delegation held meetings with airlines including ITA, Eithad, Icelandair, Nordica-Estonia, Emirates, Qatar Airlines, Saudia Airlines, TAP Portugal, Vueling, and Wizz Air, who were all present in Las Vegas.
FLIGHTS SEAT BREAKDOWN:
2.3 million seats, More than half of the 4.1 million seats available for this winter, will be offered abroad, which represents a growth of +24% (+443,380 seats) compared to winter 2019/2020.
There will be almost a million seats (977,665 seats) from mainland Spain, which is 27% more than in 2019/2020 (+205,851 more seats).
The biggest increases for foreign tourists are from the UK, Germany, France and Italy, but the seat numbers are higher for this winter in practically all markets compared to 2019/2020.
