The battle is on in Barcelona, Spain’s popular Mediterranean city where two airlines have started competing for passengers in the emerging trend of low-cost, long-haul flights.
The first flight operated by Level — a new carrier created by IAG SA, the parent company of British Airways PLC and Spain’s Iberia SA — on Thursday took off from El Prat airport for Los Angeles.
The airline also flies to San Francisco, Buenos Aires and Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic.
Photo: EPA
Meanwhile, Norwegian Air Shuttle ASA, a pioneer in cheap long-distance flights, is to begin flights to New York, Los Angeles, Miami and San Francisco today.
The airline is to make Barcelona its fifth hub for such flights after London, Paris, Bangkok and Amsterdam.
In total, 22 low-cost transatlantic flights are to depart every week from Barcelona, breaking into a market that until recently was the preserve of traditional major airlines.
However, with the emergence of a new and more fuel-efficient generation of aircraft and the collapse of oil prices, low-cost carriers such as Norwegian and French Blue are increasingly operating transatlantic flights from European airports such as Paris or London.
Barcelona, a huge tourist magnet, is well-placed to ride on this new wave, given that it is Europe’s No. 1 hub for low-cost flights, air travel data company OAG said.
While it is still behind Madrid, the airport has seen passenger numbers leap 60 percent between 2009 and last year, but until now, the flights that took off from Barcelona were almost solely short or medium-haul.
“There was an anomaly in the market: Barcelona is a city with huge international profile... but long-distance flights weren’t up to the task,” a spokesman for Norwegian said, adding that the company saw “a market opportunity” to develop cheap long-haul flights.
Barcelona — a draw for tourists, including from cruise ships — was “well placed to work,” OAG analyst John Grant said.
“A large local market, inbound demand and low-cost airlines that will encourage passengers to connect through the airport will all support those low-cost long-haul services,” he said.
“Geographically, Barcelona is very well located to serve connecting markets from perhaps Asia to Latin America, although these are in many cases currently quite small, but will grow quickly with low-cost airlines present,” he added.
Barcelona has competition in this field from other European airports, and it might need a quick boost to airport staff after lengthy passport queues last month brought it plenty of unwanted attention.
Authorities in Catalonia, where the city is located, hope that the arrival of low-cost, long-haul carriers would boost growth in the region.
“We will be just 200 euros [US$226] away from Silicon Valley and the world’s biggest tech companies,” Catalonia’s head of infrastructure Ricard Font said.
For Jaume Adrover, head of the airport section of Barcelona’s chamber of commerce, the flights could benefit Catalan companies — even small ones with low budgets — whose employees could travel to Argentina or California at low cost.
Booked in advance, the prices could be much lower than traditional airlines, provided the passenger does not want to check in his or her suitcase or pay for food, and can fly on the few days in the week when the flight operates.
The arrival of long-haul cheap flights could also give local employment a boost, Adrover said, adding that El Prat generates 125,000 jobs, directly and indirectly.
Norwegian this year also plans to double its workforce there to nearly 800 people.
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) today announced that his company has selected "Beitou Shilin" in Taipei for its new Taiwan office, called Nvidia Constellation, putting an end to months of speculation. Industry sources have said that the tech giant has been eyeing the Beitou Shilin Science Park as the site of its new overseas headquarters, and speculated that the new headquarters would be built on two plots of land designated as "T17" and "T18," which span 3.89 hectares in the park. "I think it's time for us to reveal one of the largest products we've ever built," Huang said near the
China yesterday announced anti-dumping duties as high as 74.9 percent on imports of polyoxymethylene (POM) copolymers, a type of engineering plastic, from Taiwan, the US, the EU and Japan. The Chinese Ministry of Commerce’s findings conclude a probe launched in May last year, shortly after the US sharply increased tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, computer chips and other imports. POM copolymers can partially replace metals such as copper and zinc, and have various applications, including in auto parts, electronics and medical equipment, the Chinese ministry has said. In January, it said initial investigations had determined that dumping was taking place, and implemented preliminary
Intel Corp yesterday reinforced its determination to strengthen its partnerships with Taiwan’s ecosystem partners including original-electronic-manufacturing (OEM) companies such as Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) and chipmaker United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電). “Tonight marks a new beginning. We renew our new partnership with Taiwan ecosystem,” Intel new chief executive officer Tan Lip-bu (陳立武) said at a dinner with representatives from the company’s local partners, celebrating the 40th anniversary of the US chip giant’s presence in Taiwan. Tan took the reins at Intel six weeks ago aiming to reform the chipmaker and revive its past glory. This is the first time Tan
CUSTOMERS’ BURDEN: TSMC already has operations in the US and is a foundry, so any tariff increase would mostly affect US customers, not the company, the minister said Taiwanese manufacturers are “not afraid” of US tariffs, but are concerned about being affected more heavily than regional economic competitors Japan and South Korea, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said. “Taiwan has many advantages that other countries do not have, the most notable of which is its semiconductor ecosystem,” Kuo said. The US “must rely on Taiwan” to boost its microchip manufacturing capacities, Kuo said in an interview ahead of his one-year anniversary in office tomorrow. Taiwan has submitted a position paper under Section 232 of the US Trade Expansion Act to explain the “complementary relationship” between Taiwan and the US
RSS