In the winter months, there are over 200 flights a week to Germany and the changes currently taking place within the airlines could lead to more and more favourably-priced flights.
Mallorca is also in winter an extraordinarily interesting holiday destination. If, for example, you are interested in spending New Year’s Eve on the island you will get to know a lot of new customs. The winter flight schedules for Mallorca have remained relatively stable in recent years, with a slightly rising trend compared to last year.
More and more airlines are competing for the Mallorcan market and all German cities are well connected to the island. Ryanair, for example, has ensured that there will be more flights in winter to Mallorca. The low cost provider has launched five new routes from Mallorca to Düsseldorf, Hamburg, Edinburgh, Eindhoven and Manchester.
Apart from that additional flights will be established on the routes to Berlin, Cologne and Frankfurt Hahn so that the number of Ryanair routes from Palma in the winter half-year will increases to a total of 18 and the number of weekly flights will rise to 100. From Hamburg and Cologne five flights to Palma are offered per week, three from Frankfurt Hahn and Manchester, two from Düsseldorf, Edinburgh and Eindhoven and daily to and from Berlin.
Apart from Ryanair, the companies Germanwings/Eurowings, TUIfly, Easyjet, Condor, Air Berlin, Lufthansa, Germania and Transavia offer more than 200 direct flights a week in winter from Germany to Mallorca, and over a dozen other airlines such as Norwegian, Vueling airlines or Iberia offer indirect flights, ie flights with a stopover.
Turbulence on the flight market
Air Berlin in particular has been widely discussed lately – the airline has been in financial turmoil and is currently undergoing restructuring, in particular with reference to Mallorca. Some of Air Berlin’s aircraft, complete with crews, are to be rented to Lufthansa and partly allocated to the new base of the Lufthansa subsidiary Eurowings in Mallorca.
Eurowings will take over Air Berlin flights in the Mediterranean area from the start of the winter flight plan on 31 October, so Air Berlin’s presence in Mallorca could drop to a minimum from November. At the same time Air Berlin, together with Tuifly and its partner and major shareholder Etihad from Abu Dhabi, would like to form a joint airline network.
Normal flight operations once again
The announcements of the difficulties of Air Berlin had a direct impact on TUIfly – many TUIfly employees had reported sick and flights were cancelled, and Mallorca was also affected. The reason for this was the fear of job losses due to the planned formation of the new European airline network with Air Berlin and Etihad. Due to the massive flight cancellations at TUIfly, Air Berlin flights which were operating under the so-called ”wet-lease” system (Air Berlin leased not only the aircraft from TUIfly but also the crews) were again affected. Meanwhile the situation has relaxed and regular operation at both TUIfly and Air Berlin are taking place again.
No reason to worry
For those who have already booked with Air Berlin there is no need to worry, promised Air Berlin CEO Stefan Pichler –
“We will carry out all flights as planned”
This means, in concrete terms, that there will be no changes to flights already booked and announced. In short, flight connections to Mallorca will hardly change, and at least during this winter nothing will change. Only from March will the re-organization be noticeable if the former Air Berlin flights are are carried out partly by Eurowings and partly by the still-to-be-defined federation of Air Berlin, TUIfly and Etihad. The last word has not yet been spoken, however, and further negotiations are due in November.
More and cheaper flights anticipated
The planned alliance would fundamentally change the conditions of competition as the group would become the largest holiday airline in central Europe. This could cause difficulties for competitors such as, for example, Condor Airlines of the travel company Thomas Cook who work without a partner.
The good news for travellers is that they benefit from the price war taking place as ticket prices become even more favourable. As the demand for flights to the island constantly grows, the airlines will expand their capacities for flights to Mallorca accordingly. Due to the increased demand, the competitive pressure is rising, causing prices to fall and other low-cost carriers such as Easyjet, Norwegian and Vueling are increasingly pushing into the market and also fly to Mallorca in the winter – Easyjet direct, the other two with intermediate stops.
Flight prices are already very cheap and Ryanair seems to be unbeatable – the airline offers one-way flights under 10 euros, e.g. From Berlin to Mallorca in November (“normal” prices for the airline are between 20 and 30 euros in the winter months), closely followed in the price comparison by Eurowings (from 35 euros) and Easyjet (between 40 and 50 euros). Passengers traveling via Munich or Eindhoven to Mallorca can do so in the winter with the Dutch low-cost airline Transavia from 39 euros or 35 euros respectively.
Condor does not fly from Berlin in winter, but it offers Mallorca flights from Munich from 49 euros. In the winter Lufthansa and Air Berlin fly for 140 euros to Berlin. As the Easter holidays approach flights will become more expensive, and many airlines have introduced additional Mallorca flights.
Even more flights in summer
Finally, more good news: Eurowings is also expanding and will set up a new European base next season (starting from May 2017): Added to Dortmund, Dresden, Karlsruhe, Leipzig, Nuremburg and Austria (Salzburg), from the end of May 2017 four more weekly flights will be added from Münster/Osnabrück, Paderborn/Lippstadt and Saarbrücken and from the beginning of July Basel/Mühlhausen (Switzerland).
