Puerto Rico has a beach for every taste, and Iberia has known this for 70 years.
Seventy years ago, on July 5, 1949, the Spanish airline made its maiden commercial flight to the island in a 60-seat DC-4.
Weekly flights IB981 to Puerto Rico were soon taking off from Madrid every Tuesday at 08:30 h, with refuelling stops in the Canary Islands, Cape Verde, and Bermuda, before arriving in San Juan the following day.
The return flights left on Wednesdays at 06:00h and stop in Venezuela before proceeding to Spain after stopping again in Bermuda and Cape Verde, arriving at Madrid at 16:15 h on Thursdays.
In 1949 a one-way ticket between Madrid and San Juan cost 9,120 Spanish pesetas, and a return ticket cost 16,416 pesetas.
The anniversary has also inspired a survey on Instagram, where Iberia has 325,000 followers, and a special post to the airline's more than 1.8 million fans on Facebook.
Betting on Puerto Rico
The 70th anniversary of Iberia's ties to Puerto Rico coincides with a particularly bright moment in their relations.
The airline recently announced that its non-stop flights to the island will operate all year long. From April through September it will fly every day except Mondays and Thursdays, and from October through March it will fly on Mondays, Fridays, and Sundays. It will use 292-seat Airbus A330s, with 242 seats in Economy, 29 in Business, and 21 in the new Premium Economy section for the highest-spending European holidaymakers who visit the island during the winter, and are prepared to pay a little more for additional comfort and service both on the ground and in the air.
It all adds up to an annual offer of 106,000 seats on the route, representing a 62% increase from 2018.
At last April's meeting of the World Travel Tourism Council in Seville, Iberia signed an agreement with the Compañía de Turismo de Puerto Rico to promote the island at Iberia's destinations.
Carla Campos, the Minister of Tourism in the island government, said, “We send our most sincere congratulations to the Iberia family on its 70thanniversary in Puerto Rico. The alliance between Iberia and the Puerto Rican government is stronger than ever, and our support for keeping the Madrid-San Juan route open all year round attests to this."
