Iberia highlights Miami and the United States in general as a priority market

In this context, Travel2latam had the opportunity to speak with Beatriz Guillén, Director of Global Sales for Iberia.

What can you say about the Stop Over programme? 

It is a program that we launched just before the pandemic, so we had to stop it and we have relaunched it at the end of 2022, and we are trying to promote it further, adding other collaborators, such as hotels, El Corte Inglés, the city council, the industry and councils. The city council with the transport card or the Community of Madrid providing excursions outside Madrid. So we also have a catalogue of products that we are increasing more and more both on our website and on the travel agency portal. It is open not only to people who buy from us, but also to those who can order it from a travel agency. 

On the website, for example, you can find it directly. There is a space called Hola Madrid, and there you can choose dates and see hotel offers, gastronomic offers, shopping, leisure, programs, theater, everything right there within that portal. 

What does Miami mean for Iberia?

Miami has it all. And that's what I love about this city, is that Miami has leisure, it has business, and a fairly large Spanish community. So Miami has a perfect combination of market, which is not seasonal. That's very good and important for an airline company, to have a market that works well all year round. Many of the companies that are moving their offices to Florida also make Miami an attractive business destination.

What is the approximate number of passengers? 

We have 424 thousand seats for sale. But if we assume that those 424 thousand seats will have an average occupancy of 84%, we are talking about between 350 and 370 thousand passengers per year on both routes between Madrid and Miami. 

Do you think Miami has the capacity to grow in terms of the flights you have? 

Absolutely. Miami is a market that we would like to boost if we had more planes. But our long-term plan is for all these major cities to have at least three daily flights. We don't have any plans to have them yet, but in our minds we would like all these cities, New York, Miami, just like we have Mexico City, Bogota, Buenos Aires, to have three daily flights. 

Leaving Miami, what does Latin America represent for you and what are the most important destinations? 

Latin America is our largest and most important market. We have the largest amount of our capacity there. For us, Mexico City, Bogota and Buenos Aires are our three most important markets. They are followed by Sao Paulo, Santiago de Chile and Lima. Our priority, those in which we are investing the most capacity, is to have three daily flights before the end of the year. 

And are you opening new destinations in Latin America? 

At the moment we are not increasing destinations, but we are increasing frequencies and fleet. For us, the operation we are carrying out to close the purchase of Europe is also important. It is an issue that is taking place, and if we could close that, it would help us a lot. It is strategic for us.