Palma.This season, there are going to be seven new air routes between Majorca and the UK taking the total number of routes to 70, just eight behind Germany and 29 more than from mainland Spain.
The new routes are the daily Vueling service from Heathrow, Monarch and Thomson Airways from Leeds, Norwegian from Gatwick, Aer Lingus from Belfast, British Airways from London Heathrow and Orbest Portugal from Humberside.
From Ireland, Air Contractors will be operating out of Dublin.
The majority of the new routes would have taken off at the end of last month and will be flying until at least the end of October, although many of the UK services, rather like this winter, will continue through the low season.
So, with the introduction of the new routes, Palma is now linked to 339 destinations, 337 of which are in Europe and two are in Africa.
The biggest carrier is now Ryanair which has bumped Air Berlin, which uses Palma as one its main hubs, down in to second place with easyJet in third and Air Europa in fourth.
Heathrow
For the UK market, the decision by Vueling to take on the daily Heathrow service which British Midland cancelled is the one which is expected to have the most prominent affect on the British market. Ever since British Midland decided to stop the daily service, tourists, second home owners and the business community have been calling out for a daily service to Heathrow and finally their wishes have been granted.
One leading source in the UK airline industry recently told the Bulletin that having a direct, daily link to Heathrow dramatically boosts the destination's profile and can only mean good news for Palma.
Top destination
Some UK tour operators are already reporting year-on-year increases in holiday sales to the Balearics of over 25 percent and over the past week, numerous market surveys have resulted with the Balearics, in particular, Majorca being the top destination this summer.
But Minorca, which sadly had a poor summer, is also looking forward to a busy summer with a double digit increase in bookings.