Air Europa planning flights between Costa Rica and Spain, report says

Spanish airline Air Europa will soon add Costa Rica to its list of international destinations, according to news service Agencia EFE.

Citing Diego García, a director at Air Europa’s parent company Globalia, the report says the airline will launch a flight between Madrid and Juan Santamaría International Airport in Alajuela.

The service will reportedly start in April, though the airline and Costa Rica’s Tourism Board (ICT) haven’t officially announced the route.

The move would be part of a significant expansion for Air Europa into the Americas. The airline will also add a new route between Spain and Colombia in 2020, according to Agencia EFE. This year, it debuted flights from Europe to Panama City, Panama; Medellín, Colombia; Iguazú, Argentina; and Fortaleza, Brazil.

Spanish airline Iberia currently operates direct flights between Costa Rica and its hub in Madrid. The country’s largest airline currently utilizes Airbus A330 and A340-series aircraft on its routes to Juan Santamaría Airport (SJO), and it will debut the ultramodern A350 in December.

Costa Rica welcomed more than 480,000 tourists from Europe in 2018. More than 68,000 of them came from Spain, with July and August being the heaviest travel months from that country.

Air Europa started operating scheduled domestic flights in 1993 and began flying internationally in 1995.