Post #4495617

2026-08-11 10:08 UTC

Whilst I haven’t been on this part of this line much over the past couple of years, it’s not unfamiliar to me. It was opened in stages, starting on Madrid-Lleida in 2003, reaching Barcelona in 2008, and the French border in 2013. It is known, in typical unimaginative Spanish style, as the Madrid-Zaragoza-Barcelona-French border line, or simply as line 050. And when it reached Barcelona in 2008, it caused a revolution in national travel.

Replies (1)

@moof@cupoftea.social 2026-08-11 10:08

Until then, the most transited air corridor in the world was the Madrid-Barcelona air corridor. At 1 hour between Barcelona-El Prat airport and Madrid-Barajas airport, and linking Spain’s capital with its second city, demand was such that Iberia created a product called the “Puente Aéreo” or Air Shuttle. This service had a frequency of every 30 minutes, or even every 15 at peak times. Part of it is on dedicated planes, and part of it is on dedicated seating on planes that would call at both airports before flying on to their final destination. The beauty of this service is that you don’t have to book yourself onto a particular plane. You have a fixed-price ticket, available at a discount as a carnet of ten, and you just turn up at the dedicated terminal in each airport where you will be allocated a seat on the next available plane. It’s everything that @quixoticgeek@social.v.st wants out of train ticketing, except the fact it’s not on trains.

Open ##4495863