The new flights to Tenerife are part of the largest transatlantic expansion in United Airlines history It includes ten routes and five new destinations that complete Mallorca, Amman (Jordan), Bergen (Norway) and Azores (Portugal). “We expect international travel to make a full recovery and we are committed to continuing to leverage our leading global network in new and exciting ways,” said Patrick Quayle, senior vice president of international networks and alliances for United Airlaines.
Carlos Alonso, former president of the Cabildo and spokesman for the Canarian Coalition in the Island Corporation, assured that “this announcement is the result of work carried out for many years.” “After losing the direct connection with Miami (in 2011), several studies were commissioned regarding reference markets in the United States. The best and largest corresponded to the New York-Washington area and that was where the efforts were focused, ”he explained. Alonso explains that “the specialized consultant ASM, who no longer works with Turismo de Tenerife, and several tour operator companies that have a much smaller concept there were involved, to capture specialized customer niches, in relation to Europe and the mass tourism giants type Thomas Cook or Tui ». The Tenerife politician indicates that “there was already a first contact with United Airlines because that alliance could allow us the possibility of expanding the horizon with other connections, although it did not bear fruit then.”
Carlos Alonso points out that «We had the support and interest of the hospitality sector behind us and specifically that of the hotels with the most stars on the Island ». The indirect connection, he adds, “has been maintained via Madrid or London with the intention of offering our market to the 25,000 potential North American tourists, whose flow corresponds, above all, to the summer season.”
The prevailing model, values the nationalist politician, “is that of rotations, especially due to crew changes. But the indirect connection is usable for the start of direct flights.
Alonso underlines: “This achievement of now is, therefore, largely the result of previous work.” Regarding the future, he points out that “I know that United has approached the Cabildo to walk the path to a necessary comarquetin agreement that goes towards the reality of extending this direct flight beyond the seasonal period of summer.” Carlos Alonso encourages “to work” so that This connection that is now announced “is not exclusively temporary but is maintained throughout the year.” He considers that “it is somewhat difficult but efforts must be focused so that it is not only in summer and can be extended beyond 2022”. Alonso takes the opportunity to “value the work of Stephanie Wear, until the end of 2019 director of the Tenerife Tourism connectivity department and who now works at the Philadelphia airport.” Remember that “it was key in those efforts made then to make direct flight possible today.”
«Great news for the Island»
Alonso exposes an idea: “Another issue to take into account is to establish agreements with cruise companies to connect in some way this direct flight with their presence in our ports, even though it is basically winter tourism.” Carlos Alonso reflects: “A lot of work was done through contacts with United and other airlines, in different Routes fairs. Through the aforementioned ASM (the specialized consultant that we had hired) an intense activity was deployed with different companies ”. Even, he concludes, «campaigns were carried out in the United States to generate market and indirect traffic so that in the case of business it would go out for direct flights. These flights to New York are excellent news for Tenerife, especially for the higher category hotels ».
The Tenerife Council announces a press conference for today in which its president, Pedro Martín, will announce this new direct route between Tenerife and New York, which will begin its flights in June of next year.
No direct connection since 2011
A direct flight between Tenerife and Miami, the first non-stop between the island and the United States, was inaugurated on June 20, 2009. The plane departed at 1:50 p.m. that day from Los Rodeos airport and arrived at its Destination around 4:50 PM (local time) after eight hours of travel. The route operated every Saturday from Tenerife to return to the Island early on Sunday. It operated mainly between June and October of that year and 2010. In May 2011, the Air Europa company announced that it will no longer operate the direct flight between the Tenerife North and Miami International airports. The airline explained in a statement that it thus fulfilled the original idea of the company to offer its customers a link that was only going to be provisional. Ten years later, in 2021, it is announced that next year that lost direct connection with the North American market will be recovered. At the moment in the summer season, which corresponds to the high for American tourism.
