With the formal start of the Spanish summer travel season set for 1 July, airlines, rail operators and ferry companies have collectively added tens of thousands of seats to cope with the annual ‘operación salida’ holiday exodus, according to an EFE dispatch on 30 June. Aena reports 73,229 flights scheduled between 26 June and 5 July, up 1.2 % on 2025 despite Ryanair cutting 1.2 million regional seats over the entire summer. Iberia alone will offer just over three million seats in July—five per cent more than last year—while Air Europa hews close behind with 9.3 million seats for the June–September period, buoyed by seven new routes including Madrid–Johannesburg and Madrid–Tanger. Renfe will field 21.6 million rail seats, adding 100,000 high-speed places and warning of possible disruption from a 15 July rail-union strike. Maritime operator Baleària is scaling up to 37 daily crossings between mainland Spain and North Africa from 15 June to 15 September to support the concurrent ‘Operación Paso del Estrecho’, which channels up to 3.5 million Maghrebi expatriates through Spanish ports each summer. For corporate-travel planners the message is mixed. Seat supply on trunk routes is healthy, but regional airport cuts by Ryanair, coupled with staff shortages at biometric passport posts, could funnel demand onto higher-fare carriers or alternate gateways. Rail remains a strong contingency option on the Madrid–Barcelona and Valencia corridors, though the mid-July strike window warrants close monitoring.
Source: EFE News Agency
