Singapore Airlines to make Barcelona its hub for flights to Latin American

Barcelona (ACN).- Singapore Airlines has chosen Barcelona-El Prat Airport to turn it into its intercontinental hub to flight to South America in the near future. The executive Vice President of Singapore Airlines, Choon Phong Goh, announced that beginning of 2011, the company would fly from Barcelona to Sao Paolo, Brazil, 3 times a week. It will be its first flight to South America. In addition, the Asian Airline increases its presence in Barcelona-El Prat. Until now, Singapore Airlines has been offering flights linking Barcelona to Singapore, 14 times a week, with a technical stop in Milan. Starting in March of 2011, they will increase the number to 20. The 6 new flights (3 in each direction) will be direct flights and will be the ones going to Sao Paolo.

The new route will be offered in Boeing 777-300 airplanes, which seat 300 passengers. Singapore Airlines began operating out of Barcelona in July of 2006, offering 3 flights a week (a total of 6 operations per week). In January 2008, the company began operating daily flights linking Barcelona and Singapore (7 flights in each direction), with a technical stop in Milan. Now, Singapore Airlines is partnering with Spanair as part of the Star Alliance programme to offer 3 weekly flights between Singapore and Sao Paolo (the first connection the company has made in South America), with 1-hour stopovers in Barcelona.

The president of Spanair, Ferran Soriano, said that he was not “afraid” that the opening of the new route coincides with the airline company Iberia’s inauguration of the same route. He explained that this is because there is no competition between the 2 offers and that in any case, “competition is always good”. He added that the new offers would help Barcelona to be better connected, which is “our mission”, as we have the objective to make Barcelona an intercontinental hub.

Waging for Barcelona

The executive Vice President of Singapore Airlines said that the company’s plans for Barcelona do not end with the new connections between Singapore and Sao Paolo via Barcelona. Choon Phong Goh spoke of the possibility of offering daily flights between Barcelona and Sao Paolo. He also stated that the company hopes to use Barcelona as a platform to open more routes to South American capitals.

Currently, without direct flights between Sao Paolo and Barcelona, 150,000 people travel to Brazil from Barcelona airport. Spain’s exports to Brazil total to 1,600 million euros, 26% of which come from Catalan businesses.