Q & A with Jaime Perez, International Press Chief for Iberia

by Jose Carlos de Santiago

Iberia has taken Latin America to heart. The airline’s immediate development strategy for the region calls for a shot at doubling many existing flights, beef up others and continue its far-reaching expansion in the U.S., a country where the Spanish air carrier holds a good deal of untapped opportunities with 40 million Spanish-speaking residents. Right now, the company is revamping its fleet with new jetliners for both long-haul and short-haul routes. This is the first step up toward a future growth.

Q.- What are the company’s plans in the near future and in the long run in a bid to improve its fleet and raise the level of long-haul and short-distance operations?
A.- Iberia is making a tremendous investment in an effort to improve its fleet for long-haul routes and short-distance flights. In the case of short-distance routes, we bought 80 airliners to replace the old MD-87s and MD-88s, as well as the Boeing 757s. At the end of the day, Iberia will bank exclusively on a fleet of Airbus liners by the end of 2007. That will allow for considerable cost cutbacks in maintenance and a much simpler plane rotation because pilots are all the same.

As far as the long-haul fleet is concerned, as we speak we have 31 jetliners broken down in a baker’s dozen 340-A600 and 18 340-A300. The plan is to continue enhancing the fleet as far as it gets to achieve the goal of rounding up some 60 aircraft for long-haul flights, nearly twice as many the current amount.

Q.- When are you planning to get that job done?
A.- That will certainly take a longer term in the neighborhood of three to four years from now. The idea is to cash in on the advantages the new airport can offer with faster rotations, a larger availability of slots and heightened capabilities for better connections all across the Latin American region.

Right now, Iberia’s got a hold on 18.9 percent of the market, over one percentage point above Air France-KLM. We came down to the number-two notch when they merged, but we’re now back on top.

The future is in Latin America and with that view in mind we hope to double the airlift in the region and continue tapping the U.S., a market of 40 million Spanish-speaking residents that’s increasingly becoming a more interesting and important segment. There are other markets we’d like to home in on as well, like South Africa, where we’re sticking to a daily flight for the time being. We’ve got plans in the offing to open new routes there, but in the meantime Latin America will be the name of the game.

Q.- What about Panama, Honduras, Costa Rica and the rest of Central America? What’s Iberia going to do to improve the soldout booking levels it’s boasting right now?
A.- As long as we have good aircraft availability we’re going to ramp up flights there. Departing from Costa Rica –by far the number-one destination and draws in the largest amount of passengers- we hope to buttress connections with Guatemala and Panama.

Honduras is not part of our immediate plans, nor are other destinations in the region. So far, we are handling good flows of passengers from that nation, but it’s not large enough to pack a large airliner.

Q.- How is the company doing as far as agreements with local carriers from Central America are concerned? Are there any other accords coming your way?
A.- As long as those accords bring benefits to our customers, the answer is yea. For example, the agreements with TACA are working on all six and are guaranteeing a pretty good service. The same instance applies to TAM and GOL from Brazil. Iberia’s policy is to cut deals that can make things easier for our passengers. Now travelers are getting a brand-new offer out of Miami. They catch the early-morning flight and land in Madrid on the same day.

Q.- Do these codeshare operations include adequate airfares?
A.- Oh, sure. As far as fares are concerned, we’re constantly matching fares to get the price possible. That’s the kind of things we do all the time and you bet we’re going to stick to that policy.