Post #4495863

2026-08-11 10:08 UTC

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.

Replies (1)

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

The thing about the air shuttle is that whilst it’s a one hour flight, the door-to-door time is closer to 3.5 hours. Neither airport is anywhere near their city centres. Barcelona is a 30-60 min drive from its airport, and Madrid is a 45-90 min drive from its airport. Add to that the time it takes to get past security, and you’re looking at more time on the ground than in the air. And neither had particularly good public transport connections. The Madrid-Barcelona high speed trains, on the other hand, go from Barcelona-Sants to Madrid-Puerta de Atocha stations, which are in the town centres, and they can take as little as 2.5 hours on the non-stop service, or 3 hours when with a few stops in between. And trains are much more comfortable. Plus, in the era of the Blackberry, even the spotty coverage on the train was much better for a business ego than the 1 hour blackout on the plane. Let’s not forget the WiFi either. The demand for the air shuttle halved in about a year.

Open ##4495862