On November 3, 2024, Spanish carrier Iberia marked the 50th anniversary of its iconic “Puente Aéreo” service, the air shuttle between Barcelona-El Prat (BCN) and Madrid-Barajas (MAD).
Introduced in 1974 in response to the huge amount of business traffic between Spain’s two largest cities, the “Puente Aéreo” service allows passengers to arrive at the airport without previous booking and board the next flight up to 20 minutes before the flight’s departure. “Puente Aéreo” passengers have also dedicated check-in, boarding areas and lounges at both airports.
Although it was not the first service of this sort to be launched in the world (this honor goes to the Sao Paulo to Rio de Janeiro air shuttle, which was introduced in 1959), it was the first in Europe and at some points in time, the air shuttle between Barcelona and Madrid was the busiest scheduled air route in the world.
The term “Puente Aéreo” has also entered Spanish pop culture, to the point that a Spanish court ruled, in 1996, that Iberia didn’t have the exclusive use of the term in a legal challenge brought forward by its competitor (and more recently, acquisition target) Air Europa.
Iberia operated the route between Barcelona and Madrid as a monopoly until 1993, most of this time with Boeing 727 aircraft. The situation changed with the liberalization of European skies enabled other airlines, such as Air Europa and Spanair to enter this market.
But the biggest challenge to the “Puente Aéreo” hasn’t come from another airline, but from the introduction of high-speed rail service between Barcelona and Madrid in 2008, an offering that has since expanded in frequencies due to the introduction of new rail operators.
While, at the moment, the train accounts for over 80% of the traffic between the two cities, but this has not prevented Iberia’s air shuttle from remaining one of the Spanish flag carrier’s flagship routes, with some 86 weekly frequencies in each direction operated by A320-family aircraft.