Primera Air Scandinavia (Billund) has announced it will open a new crew base at Malaga in October 2018 in order to better connect this popular Spanish city to the United Kingdom. The carrier will also add Manchester International to its network and start serving Reykjavik Keflavik out of the UK in the final quarter of the year.
Announcing it plans for Winter 2018, the Nordic leisure specialist has said that it plans to launch two new routes of Malaga to each of Paris CDG and Manchester, in addition to the already announced Summer routes to Birmingham, GB, London Stansted, and Copenhagen Kastrup.
"Historically Malaga is our strongest destination and with more than 1,000 flights last year, it was also our most demanded destination. We see that Malaga is also very popular for UK travellers, so we believe our Manchester route will give British travellers improved flight options," Primera Air's Chief Commercial Officer Anastasija Visnakova has said.
The airline also announced it will launch new winter routes out of Birmingham to each of Alicante, Tenerife Sur, Gran Canaria, and Reykjavik Keflavik, as well as out of London Stansted to each of Alicante, Las Palmas, Malaga and Tenerife Sur.
The move comes even before the carrier, which traditionally focused on the Scandinavian leisure market, launches its UK-Spain services. The first flights out London Stansted to each of Alicante and Malaga are planned for April 9 and will be operated with B737-800 equipment.
The carrier currently operates mainly out of Copenhagen Kastrup, Billund, and Aalborg, while its Latvian-based subsidiary Primera Air Nordic (Riga) flies predominantly out of Stockholm Arlanda, Gothenburg Landvetter, and Reykjavik Keflavik.
In addition to the UK-Spain market growth, the group plans to launch scheduled transatlantic flights out of its new bases at Birmingham, London Stansted, and Paris CDG to each of New York Newark, Boston, and Toronto Pearson. The airline will take delivery of eight Airbus A321neos starting in spring 2018 to operate these flights. Primera plans to announce further transatlantic destinations in the near future.
