Spanish carrier Iberojet will add a third weekly flight between Madrid and San José beginning in late November, expanding one of Costa Rica’s few direct links to continental Europe ahead of the Christmas travel season. The new service will depart Madrid on Thursdays, joining the airline’s existing Tuesday and Saturday departures to San Jose’s Juan Santamaría International Airport.
The addition comes under an agreement between Iberojet and the Instituto Costarricense de Turismo (ICT). According to the airline, the Thursday frequency will not be a seasonal add-on. It will remain part of Iberojet’s regular published schedule through 2027 and 2028, giving travelers a durable third option on a route that has until now clustered around the start and end of the week.
Mario Domínguez, spokesman for the tour operations division at Ávoris, the Spanish travel group that owns Iberojet, said the additional frequency reflected the route’s performance and the company’s confidence in Costa Rica as a strategic destination. He said rising demand confirmed growing traveler interest in the market and that the company intended to keep expanding the connection.
Marcos Borges, executive president of the ICT, described the expansion as strong news for the country, saying it improves air capacity with one of Costa Rica’s principal source markets in Europe and signals the airline’s confidence in the destination’s competitiveness. He added that more frequencies would bring more visitors, generate employment and increase economic activity in communities that depend on tourism.
Ricardo Hernández, executive director of AERIS, the concession holder that manages Juan Santamaría, said the third frequency demonstrated airline confidence in the airport and in Costa Rica’s potential as a destination, and that AERIS and the ICT would continue investing in improvements to support carrier growth.
The numbers behind the decision favor Spain in particular. ICT figures show that arrivals from Spain by air rose 16.8% in the first half of 2026 compared with the same period last year, reaching 24,910 visitors, up from 21,330. That was the sharpest percentage gain of any major European market apart from the Netherlands, which grew 18.6%. Europe as a whole sent 236,462 travelers to Costa Rica by air between January and June, a 9.7% increase.
June alone told a more complicated story. Total air arrivals to Costa Rica fell 1.2% that month against June 2025, the first monthly decline of the year after eight consecutive months of growth. The ICT attributed the dip to a combination of international factors including geopolitical tensions, higher jet fuel costs and travel patterns around the 2026 World Cup rather than to any loss of competitiveness by the destination. European traffic ran against that trend, rising 12.9% in June, with Spanish arrivals up 23.4% year over year that month.
For travelers on this side of the Atlantic, the practical effect is more seats and more flexibility on a corridor that carries a fair amount of connecting traffic. Madrid functions as a hub for onward travel across Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, and a midweek departure opens up itinerary combinations that were awkward under a Tuesday and Saturday schedule. Anyone planning trips to Europe, or arranging visits from family members abroad, will have a third departure day to work with from late November onward.
Fares and exact departure times for the Thursday service had not been published at the time of the announcement. Travelers planning holiday-season trips should check the airline’s schedule directly, since inaugural-period timings on new frequencies frequently shift before the first departure.
