Since they began operating the route in late 2006 (following the Cordoba agreement where Spain agreed to lift some of her discriminatory air restrictions) Iberia flights have operated at lunch time.
But the schedule has been unpopular as it requires passengers to commit most of the day to travelling. From 2nd May 2008 flight times will switch to the evenings. This will enable people to remain at work/school on the day of their flight and also allow business travellers to make use of their flight day.
Old Schedule:
Depart MAD 1150, Arrive GIB 1300.
Return GIB 1350, Arrive MAD 1500.
New Schedule:
Depart MAD 1930, Arrive GIB 2040.
Return GIB 2130, Arrive MAD 2240.
According to Iberia's published schedule the first flight at the new times will be Friday 2nd May.
[Though there seem to be a few different start dates floating about, JimenaPulse gives May 20th (possibly a misprint for 2nd), and the iberia.com web 'timetable' lists an evening flight on 27th April - the same day as last lunch time flight, but this is also probably a simple error as tickets are not actually being sold for an evening flight on the 27th.]
There is no word on any increase on frequency from the present Fridays and Sundays.
When first launched the flights were daily, however lower demand led to them being reduced to just weekends for the winter. A element of the low demand can certainly be attributed to the midday flight times.
However if there is not the demand for a full A319 service daily, hopefully we can get Air Nostrum (who operate as 'Iberia Regional') to also fly the route.
Air Nostrum regularly receive high praise on all routes they operate (which include services to Italy and France and other European destinations.
Operating a single cabin for all passengers on most routes, called 'regional business class', they offer a better product than Iberia mainline themselves - who rather let down the standards of the OneWorld alliance by making people pay for refreshments on standard tickets.
Introducing daily evening flights to Madrid would also plug some of the present gap following the EasyJet take over of GB Airways.
The replacement British Airways service is currently limited to one flight a day due to BA aircraft shortage. As it is an early morning flight it prevents people flying into Gib doing a same day European connection.
An evening Madrid service would allow passengers who seek a business class service to still make same-day European connections inbound. (Outbound same day connections possible via BA in London.)
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