Iberia chooses Santo Domingo as the start to afflict Air Europa

Iberia has launched an offensive to offer seats from Madrid to Santo Domingo, which is the start of its plan to afflict its rival Air Europa after failing to absorb it. The IAG airline will progressively increase its Flights in the Dominican capital until reaching 11 weekly frequencies, from the current daily Flight.

With this, Iberia will increase its offer to the Dominican Republic by 20% compared to 2023 for the winter season, with 8 weekly frequencies for November, then 10 in December and 11 in January. In February and March 2025, it will have 10 Flights every seven days, according to the company. Preferential (Hidalgo, “happy” that the sale to Iberia fell through despite having signed it).

The Spanish airline will reach 125,000 seats with the Dominican Republic, 50% more than in 2019. By 2024, it will offer an average of 230,000 seats to this country, increasing 11% compared to last year on the route to Santo Domingo, competing directly with Air Europa.

As reported by REPORTUR.usdata recently came to light that support suspicions of the more than possible influence of France in Brussels’ decision to reject the purchase of Air Europa by Iberia, which after almost five years did not bear fruit due to the obstacles put in place by the Community Executive. Air France multiplied its meetings with commissioners in the months prior to the Directorate General for Competition of the European Commission issuing its opinion. (Air France-KLM: this is how they pressured Iberia to give up buying Air Europa).

Iberia had already suggested that if Brussels were to veto the absorption of Air Europa, it could undermine the Globalia airline by assuming losses for one or two years to take away demand with very low prices, spending around 200 million euros to push its competitor to the brink, compared to the 400 million that the purchase would have cost (Iberia would undermine Air Europa at half the cost of buying it).