Spain is as popular as ever, and this year alone over 100 million tourists are expected to visit the Mediterranean country. This popularity has led to record-high transatlantic travel demand to Spain, with new routes from both the United States and Canada opening up constantly over the last few years. Besides the country’s largest hubs, smaller cities such as Santiago de Compostela (SCQ), Malaga (AGP), and Bilbao (BIO) now all have flights to the United States, made possible largely due to new long-haul capable narrowbody aircraft such as Boeing 737 MAX 8 and the Airbus A321neo.

However, Valencia, Spain’s third-largest city and the center of an urban area of around 1.6 million people, is struggling to attract airlines to establish transatlantic routes despite a decade-long effort by regional authorities. According to Spanish newspaper La Razon, the regional government is increasing its international tourism promotion budget from €9 million to €19 million, with the United States and Asia among the priority markets. This includes promotional efforts to establish new transatlantic routes to the region’s largest airport, Alicante-Elche Airport (ALC) or Valencia Airport (VLC), with the latter remaining the primary candidate for attracting new long-haul connections. Besides the prestige of such a route and the general economic benefits, an important reason for the local government to focus on new transatlantic routes to attract higher-spending North American tourists.

Why There Are No US Flights From Valencia

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Delta Air Lines last served Valencia in 2012 with four weekly flights to New York (JFK) using a Boeing 757-200. At the time, the route was discontinued due to rising costs and weak demand resulting in profitability concerns. However, since then, a lot has changed and while the airport welcomed around 5 million passengers in 2015, it handled close to 12 million in 2025, according to Eurostat. To ensure the airport can accommodate even more passengers going into the next decade, 400 million euros is being invested to increase capacity.

According to Spanish newspaper El Economista, the availability of aircraft and crew is a key problem hindering the commencement of new transatlantic services. However, despite this being an issue, it also simply means airlines have found more lucrative markets to deploy their limited capacity in. Something that was clearly proven when Delta allowed its SkyMiles members to vote on the next European destination and Valencia wasn’t on the list, despite ongoing talks with local representatives about a potential return to the Spanish city.

The most obvious reason for airlines to have avoided Valencia is its mixed destination profile with leisure, business, and VFR demand. Most routes to secondary European destinations started by United Airlines and Delta Air Lines in recent years are highly leisure-focused and seasonal. On most of these flights, United is even deploying its most premium-configured Boeing 767s, suggesting that capturing high-yield demand is the primary objective on these routes. Valencia is less suitable for this as it does not have the most premium leisure profile, and is instead a more versatile destination.

In order to capture Valencia’s mixed demand effectively, consistent schedules with sufficient frequencies are a requirement in order to be competitive against connecting itineraries. However, Valencia might not be a mature enough market (yet) to sustain high yields, which are needed to operate profitably, or perhaps more likely, to prioritize capacity deployment over other, more lucrative markets. At the same time, catchment leakage to Madrid and Barcelona probably also plays an important role, and is something set to increase as Madrid Barajas Airport is about to be connected to Spain’s excellent high-speed railway network later this year.

Is American Airlines About To Announce Flights To Valencia?

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As said by Valencia’s Minister of Tourism, Marián Cano, to local newspaper La Razon, both Dallas (DFW) and Miami (MIA) are now “moving forward” while New York also “remains interesting”. For anyone familiar with the US aviation market, this likely suggests that talks with American Airlines are currently ongoing. Reinforcing this is the fact that the airline has recently started to add new routes across Europe, including routes to several secondary transatlantic destinations, and is continuing to explore new markets.

Furthermore, of the big three US airlines, American already offers the largest capacity and number of routes between Spain and the US, despite only serving two destinations: Madrid (MAD) and Barcelona (BCN). For American Airlines, Valencia could therefore be an attractive underserved market to broaden its Spanish network and grow its market share beyond the country’s primary hubs, especially now the airline can finally grow its long-haul network again with the arrival of new aircraft.

The most obvious reason to expand in Valencia is, of course, the fact that there is limited direct competition as no other airline is currently operating between Valencia and the United States. Second, the route would complement the Atlantic Joint Business (AJB) agreement, a revenue-sharing agreement among oneworld airlines, including American Airlines and Spain’s flag-carrier Iberia. This means the new route would strengthen the competitive positioning of the overall network between the United States and Spain rather than compete with existing routes between the two.

These Routes Might Be On American Airlines’ Radar

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While flights between New York and Valencia appear a logical addition as this route can be served using the new A321XLR and tap into the massive local demand of the “Tri-State Area”, Miami might actually be the route on which American holds the best competitive advantage. Not only does Miami provide access to Florida’s massive outbound tourism market, it is also a gateway to Latin America, a region with strong travel demand to and from Spain.

However, this route is less suited to the 155-seat A321XLR, and would likely require a 234-seat Boeing 787-8, thus requiring strong demand in order to achieve profitable load factors. Less realistic would be a route to Dallas, American’s largest hub, as this route would be much longer compared to a route to the East Coast or Florida, and require a high-capacity widebody. At the same time, this route would likely have less local demand and be more dependent on connecting traffic from other US destinations rather than Latin America.

If connections to other US destinations are a primary objective, then a flight to Philadelphia (PHL) could arguably make more sense. Philadelphia already serves as American’s main transatlantic hub with numerous routes to Europe, and a route to Valencia could, distance-wise, be operated by an A321XLR, which is far more suited to a secondary market. This would also align with recent events such as the launch of direct flights to Porto (OPO), a destination with a similar secondary profile as Valencia. According to American Airlines Senior Vice President of Network Planning, Brian Znotins,

“So, the XLR also introduces an ability for us to fly new markets like JFK to Edinburgh, across Europe, and then also South America. By having an airplane that’s properly sized for the demand of smaller markets, you’ll see us adding destinations in secondary cities in France, Spain, Italy, Germany, the UK, and also to Latin America.”

Another potential destination mentioned by Cano is Orlando (MCO). However, it is difficult to see which airline would operate this route and is able to do so profitably. While Orlando is the busiest airport in Florida, this is primarily a result of the large volumes of inbound tourists visiting one of many theme parks in the Orlando region. In addition to this, the airport is not a hub for any of the three major U.S. airlines, resulting in a limited number of connecting itineraries, and a reliance on local Origin & Destination (O&D) demand. If any airline were to start flying this price-sensitive leisure route, it would likely be a Spanish charter/leisure airline such as World2Fly or Iberojet, focusing on Spanish outbound tourism.

Canada Might Also Be A Lucrative Market

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Besides the United States, Canada is also a strong contender for transatlantic growth. As a matter of fact, Canadian leisure airline Air Transat has already been operating from Montreal (YUL) to Valencia since last summer. Initially, these flights were planned as a weekly peak season route running from June until October, but were quickly extended to a year-round service with two weekly flights during the high-demand summer months. Sebastian Ponce, Air Transat’s Chief Revenue Officer, highlighted the following to TravelPulse:

“Having recently added Valencia to our summer program, its winter extension is a testament to the destination’s potential.”

If the route continues to perform well, there is a high chance that Air Transat will continue to increase capacity on the route, and at one point might even introduce a second route to Toronto (YYZ), from where the airline also operates a variety of routes to leisure destinations across Europe. While less obvious than Air Transat expanding, Air Canada might also be watching Valencia as it has been expanding its leisure routes across Europe and Spain in particular, with routes to Palma de Mallorca (PMI) and Tenerife (TFS) commencing later this year using the new Airbus A321XLR.

The third option for flights between Valencia and Canada is, of course, Canada’s second-largest airline, WestJet. Similar to the two other airlines above, WestJet already operates to both Madrid and Barcelona. However, it seems the least likely candidate to start a route to Valencia for a number of reasons. First, WestJet’s main transatlantic hub is in Calgary, which is a substantially longer route than Montreal or Toronto, requiring a Boeing 787-9, which at first glance appears uneconomical for a smaller market such as Valencia. And even if economical, there are likely more lucrative markets to deploy the widebody capacity in.

Second, the transatlantic routes the airline does operate from Eastern Canada are all operated using a Boeing 737 MAX 8, which doesn’t have enough range to reach Valencia from Montreal or Toronto. The only viable scenario for WestJet to start flights to Valencia would be from the airline’s seasonal transatlantic hub in Halifax (YHZ), but whether this is commercially interesting enough remains to be seen.

These Are The Options Beyond North America

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Whereas additional flights to North America appear most realistic, Valencia’s Minister for Tourism also told local newspaper El Economista that the local government is in talks with airlines about flights to Asia and, in particular, China. However, this appears unlikely in the near term, as demand and yields are unlikely to be strong enough to sustain such a long route. In reality, Valencia’s most plausible route to Asia is not a direct China flight, but a Gulf connection via Doha or Dubai on Qatar Airways or flydubai.

Another possibility for intercontinental flights beyond North America could be direct services to Latin America. Similar to China, however, this does not look viable in the next few years, as a direct flight to, for example, Bogotá (BOG) or Mexico City (MEX) would require a large widebody aircraft, while demand is probably too thin to support profitable load factors. What is clear is that an opportunity exists for airlines to start intercontinental service to Valencia, especially to and from the United States, but it remains to be seen which airline will eventually prioritize the Spanish city for growth.