According to plans made public by airline companies, starting with the month of July, Manises Valencia airport will be reopening air traffic with 18 countries along 78 routes.
Beginning with the 1st of July, the Spanish government is lifting the mandatory quarantine for foreign passengers, although many airline companies will already be active by the end of June.
According to the municipal tourism office, Valencia will be reopening air travel with Europe and North Africa. In Europe, Valencia will begin the month of July with at least 53 connections in 43 cities and 18 countries, with 147 weekly flights. Before the pandemic there were 91 connections with 65 cities in 22 countries. Relative to these statistics, international connectivity has been reinstated in a ratio of 60%. In Spain, the month of July will begin with at least 25 routes in 12 airports.
Ryanair, the largest operator out of Manises, will be resuming almost all its activity, guaranteeing a large connectivity with Italy. Vueling will open in July with 9 routes, including Amsterdam, Paris and Rome, with more to follow in August.
On the other hand, Lufthansa has cancelled its Valencia connection. Similarly, nothing is known about the routes towards Granada, Almeria and Pamplona, which Air Nostrum had announced a few months before, as summer news. For July there is also no known info about flights to Moscow, Prague, Lisbon, Rotterdam, Bordeaux or Lyon.
Surprises come in the form of routes which were previously unavailable. Wizz Air will be supplying the connection between Valencia and Milano Malpensa, while Volotea will be flying Mallorca, Menorca and Bilbao, routes that they are just inaugurating. The Bilbao route will have 3 airlines operating it in July, as Vueling and Air Nostrum have also announced flights.
As far as traffic towards Spanish capitals, there will obviously be a considerable ammount of traffic towards the Balearic and Canary Islands, but there will also be connections to Sevilla, Santander or Madrid starting in July.
In any case, aerial planning for this summer is neither clear nor definitive. Plans for Valencia by airlines such as KLM-Air France, Transavia, British Airways(IAG), EasyJet or Turkish Airlines are still unknown.
These are the companies that link medium size towns, such as Valencia, to large international airports(hubs), such as Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Munich, Paris CDG or London Heathrow, where intercontinental flights towards America or Asia can be found.
The uncertainty of longer flights will, in all likelyhood, be cleared up as the situation of the pandemic progresses at different speeds in each region of the planet.
Sources: 20minutos, Las Provincias