Clickair, the fast expanding Iberia spin-off, has launched its first Scottish route with daily non-stop flights between Edinburgh and Barcelona.
”Edinburgh is a great complement to our existing UK services,” said clickair CEO, Alex Cruz. ”Barcelona and Edinburgh have strong links and we are proud to offer all travellers ” business people, tourists and students alike ” a product they can tailor to their needs. We want to cover the huge existing demand in Scotland for Barcelona.”
This new clickair route joins the carrier”s existing UK flights connecting Seville, Valencia and La Coru”a with London and Barcelona with Dublin.
Clickair claims to be the only low cost airline into Heathrow. Asked about the operation Cruz was bullish: ”London is performing well, showing early signs of profitability, particularly on southern routes.
”We promised the UK market a review after a few months of operations, particularly at Heathrow ” so far, we are encouraged by both the revenue and cost figures related to this airport. We look forward to continuing operations over the coming months.”
Launched on 1 October 2006, initially with three Airbus A320 jets, today clickair operates 19 aircraft deployed on 44 routes covering 39 destinations. By the end of 2007 the carrier anticipates a fleet of 24 A320s, all configured to carry 180 passengers.
Investors in the new carrier were: Iberia; Nefinsa (parent of Spanish regional airline Air Nostrum); Spanish construction group Cobra (ACS Group); tour company Iberostar and Quercus Equity.
The airline offers allocated seating on all routes and will shortly introduce a ”click&fly” service on its UK operations, enabling UK-originating passengers to select their seat and print their boarding pass, as soon as the booking is confirmed. This facility is already available on Spanish domestic services.