The Spanish association for airline time slots, AECFA, has released figures for the 2025/2026 low season which indicate a 10.3% reduction in flights to and from Balearic airports and an 8.3% reduction in the total number of available seats.
The airlines' 'winter' season runs from the start of November to the end of March. For the coming season there are 62,652 flights and 9.2 million seats. These compare with 69,845 and more than 10 million for 2024/2025. The figures are subject to possible change, but not on a scale that would represent a significant movement either up or down.
Of the three Balearic airports, Palma is set to have the sharpest reductions - 13% fewer flights and nine per cent fewer seats (to around 6.9 million). AECFA has yet to give detail as to routes, but whichever these are, the reductions, following low-season growth certainly since the pandemic, threaten to undermine a core element of government tourism strategy. This has been to grow the low season and with the hope of effecting a form of redistribution of visitors away from the high season.
On Tuesday, President Prohens responded to the publication of findings from the government's survey of public opinion about tourism by observing that "we now have a season of ten months, when before it was four months". "We are seeing an increase in the low-season months, something which all political parties have sought for some years." The AECFA figures suggest otherwise.
Over the winter season, Mallorca has relied for years on German and Spanish tourism. British has been a distant third. German tourism, which had been growing on average by ten per cent per month, went into sudden reverse in May. This was repeated in June and July (August's figures are not available yet). The scheduled reductions for this coming winter may be a reflection of this downward trend.
For 2024/2025 there was an 8.5% increase in the number of seats; Palma had 7.8 million.