The current routes to Amsterdam, Brussels, Düsseldorf, Rome, Dublin, London and Paris will be joined by connections to Milan-Bergamo and Lisbon at the end of March.
Lufthansa will reach Asturias for the first time with five flights a week to Frankfurt and Munich from 23 April
Venice could join the list of direct destinations from Asturias airport
In 2023 Asturias airport is set to have the largest direct flight offer to international destinations in its history. By the end of April, the region will have non-stop connections to eleven destinations in eight countries, to which we should add another more than likely connection to Venice.
In addition to the routes already in operation to Paris, London, Amsterdam, Brussels, Düsseldorf, Rome and Dublin, Volotea will start operating connections to Milan-Bergamo and Lisbon at the end of March.
These will be joined by the arrival in Asturias of the German airline Lufthansa, which will connect the Asturian airport with Frankfurt and Munich from 23 April.
And the regional Government wants to launch an administrative process that will allow direct flights this summer between Asturias and Venice.
Investment by the Government of Asturias to improve the region’s air links
This growth in direct routes from Asturias to international destinations comes after the Government of Asturias invested almost nine million euros in a public tender for air promotion. This investment was designed, among other things, to promote the economic development of the region and the arrival of investment.
The tender was won by Ryanair, Vueling and Volotea. Ryanair earmarked the aid to offer, from November 2022, flights to Düsseldorf, Brussels and Rome, to which it added Dublin and London Stansted Airport. Vueling connects the region with Paris, Amsterdam and London Gatwick, while Volotea will start in March with routes to Lisbon and Milan.
And thanks to this regional Government plan, Asturias airport closed 2022 with a total of 1,454,763 passengers, 2.6% more than in 2019. 106,405 passengers were foreigners, a figure that was 67.7% higher than in 2019. This consolidation is due to the dynamism shown by the recovery of international traffic, according to AENA.
In 2019, the last year before the COVID-19 pandemic, the Asturian airport was used by 1,417,912 passengers. Of these, only 4% had an international origin or destination. That year, the region only had one fixed international destination, London, to which Volotea’s summer flights to Venice and Munich were added.
The 1.5 millionth traveller arrived for the first time in 2007 and only repeated the visit a year later. It is foreseeable that by the end of 2023, this figure will have been far exceeded.
In the domestic offer of Asturias airport, in addition to the existing routes that will continue throughout the year to Madrid, Barcelona, Majorca, Alicante, Valencia, Malaga, Seville, Gran Canaria, Fuerteventura, Tenerife and Lanzarote, those to Murcia, Minorca and Ibiza will be added, and also, in all probability, Granada.
Asturias thus reaches 27 direct destinations to nine countries and improves its strategic connections.
Lufthansa arrives for the first time in Asturias
From the end of April, Asturias will have five direct flights a week to the German cities of Frankfurt and Munich, operated by Lufthansa. Both are the company’s main hubs and two of the largest in Europe.
The leading German airline is coming to our region for the first time, and it is doing so without financial support, either public or private.
These two new routes from Asturias to international destinations represent a giant leap forward in improving connectivity in our region. The arrival of Lufthansa will offer Asturias a global connection to more than 200 destinations worldwide, through the business group itself, its partners and Star Alliance.
“Asturias will finally have global connectivity; with a single hop, through the flight hubs in Frankfurt and Munich, we will be able to reach a higher number of destinations”, says Jorge García, Vice-Minister of Infrastructure, Mobility, and Territory of the Government of Asturias.
These connections operated by Lufthansa will contribute to economic development and also to promoting the Asturias Natural Paradise brand in all the destinations of the airline’s network.
An airport at the centre of life in Asturias
The airport is “a key player in the life of Asturias, a fundamental actor in contributing to its development”, says Carlos San Martín, who has been its director for the last thirteen years.
“The region has great potential, not only in terms of tourism, but also as a business opportunity. These are the singularities: that it is a major player in the development of the destination and the great involvement of all the institutions that see that the airport is strategic,” says San Martín.
