Reus Airport will link up with Mallorca again in the summer. Air Nostrum consolidates the route that it launched this year and will connect with Palma from June 20 to September 3, 2023, as announced yesterday by the Diputació de Tarragona. There will be two weekly flights, on Tuesday and Saturday morningsand passengers coming from the capital of Baix Camp may easily access Ibiza and Menorca via airline connections from Palma aerodrome.
The route will be operated with the ATR-72 aircraft model, which has capacity for 72 passengers, and 44 movements will be made. Air Nostrum sources detail the diary about 3,100 places have been programmed.
Regarding the hours, the operation will have two sections. The first will cover from June 20 to July 20. So, the flights on Tuesday will leave Son Sant Joan at 9:45 a.m. and return from Reus at 11:10 a.m. On Saturdays, the operation is brought forward five minutes with departure at 9.40 from Mallorca and 11.05 from Reus. From July 21 to September 3, the Tuesday flight will leave Mallorca at 7:30 a.m. and return from Reus Airport at 9:15 a.m. On Saturdays, the flight will leave Mallorca at 12:15 p.m. and return from Reus at 1:40 p.m.
Therefore, 2023 will be the third consecutive tourist season for Air Nostrum at Reus Airport and that ensures the presence of national routes Also for the third year. In 2021, the airline offered routes to Ibiza and this 2022 it flew to Palma de Mallorca. For this last destination, which was in force from June 14 to September 4 with CRJ 1000 aircraft, it sold around 1,959 seats, according to traffic data published by Aena. Ryanair, Jet2, TUI and Vueling will also operate next summer.
Diversify and seasonally adjust
Consulted in this regard, the president of the Tarragona Provincial Tourism Board, Meritxell Roigé, points out that “without a doubt” the Air Nostrum route “is very good news for the entire destination.” In this sense, “we highly value the company’s commitment to consolidate the connection”, especially since “it highlights the good results achieved last season”.
“Visitors from the Balearic Islands appreciate above all the cultural and leisure offer of our destination”, says Roigé, who adds that this “allows us to diversify” and “is complemented by the attractions sought by other markets, such as international ones.” “We will continue working to promote the activity of the Airport in favor of the economic development of the territory”, he concludes.
For her part, Noemí Llauradó, who yesterday served as accidental mayor of Reus, emphasizes that “we must congratulate ourselves because this news represents the consolidation of the joint work we carried out with the Strategic Board of the Reus Airport”. The Reus-Palma link, from Llauradó’s point of view, “offers us a new opportunity to promote interconnectivity with the territory and to promote the city as one of the great tourist attractions of the Campwith an important cultural and modernist heritage, and a point of discovery for the architect Antoni Gaudí».
The president of the Reus Chamber of Commerce, Jordi Just, is more critical. “Naturally we should celebrate the news because it serves to enrich the flight offer at our airport,” he believes, although “It is not enough if what we really want is to seasonally adjust it”. “September and October are months of notable tourist activity, also taking into account the dynamism of wine tourism,” he highlights, and says that “it would be necessary for the programming of these flights to be extended in the calendar to respond to this offer.”
For Just, “We must be more demanding and also attend to the needs of the business community”since “it is clear that those of tourism, which is a key sector, are attended to, but it is also necessary to do so with the requests of the companies that demand, especially regular flights to carry out their activity.”
Winter without commercial activity
The Airport is currently going through its third winter without commercial flights. It is not expected to resume activity until the end of March, coinciding with the next time change, when it will enter the high season. Beyond Mallorca, the great novelty of 2023 will be the Vueling route with Paris Orly, which will start up on March 26.