Iberia will start flying between Los Angeles and Madrid on March 28th. From that date, it will operate three non-stop flights weekly from Los Angeles –on Monday, Wednesdays, and Saturdays– with an additional Friday flight in July-September.

The Spanish airline expects to carry some 68,000 passengers on the Los Angeles route in the first year of operation. To serve the whole region, Iberia will offer connecting flights from / to Fresno, Sacramento, Santa Barbara and Medford, as well as Honolulu under a code share agreement with American Airlines from/to Los Angeles.

Iberia’s transatlantic services from Barcelona will open with the new Barcelona-Miami route on March 29th, with flights on Tuesdays, Fridays and Saturdays. From Miami passengers can connect to the rest of the United States via American Airlines. Iberia expects to carry 53,000 passengers on this route in the first year of operation.

The aircraft used on the route will be a 254-seat Airbus A-340/300, with a 36-seat Business Plus section, recently redesigned, with 2.20 meters of space for each passenger and seats that unfold into horizontal beds.

This new routes, together with the overall capacity increase on its flights from Boston, Chicago and New York to the Spanish capital will consolidate the United States as Iberia’s most important long-haul market. In 2011 the airline will offer a total of 1,164,000 seats between the Spain and USA, representing a 13 per cent increase from 2010.

The new flights and the overall capacity increase are part of the joint business launched in October last year byIberia, American Airlines and British Airways for routes over the North Atlantic. Customers of the three airlines have now more travel options available, with more frequencies, more destinations and better connections across their networks. The three airlines’ combined route network serves 433 destinations in 105 countries with almost 5,200 daily departures.

American Airlines and British Airways will also start new services as a consequence of the joint business. Beginning April 5, American launches service from JFK to Budapest and on May 1, it begins a new flight from Chicago to Helsinki. Also, British Airways will begin service from San Diego to London on June 2.