New budget airline joins the Barcelona runway

The rise of the budget airline in Europe, despite the environmental concerns , isn’t showing any signs of slowing. By far the biggest in Europe are Easyjet and Ryanair, both of which have their main hubs in the UK. This is great for traveling from London to other popular European destinations, but not so great if you want to go on to other cities.

Finally, Spain is getting in on the act with some budget airlines of its own. In the past two years, two Spanish budget airlines have appeared - Vueling and Air Madrid.

Now a third has arrived. Spain’s major airline, Iberia, is about to offload a number of its Barcelona routes to its new budget airline – Catair, according to a report in Forbes. They will also increase their Barcelona departures by 50 per cent.

This is excellent news for travelers for whom Spain is not their final destination, or if they want to come in to Spain from another European city. Barcelona is the perfect final stop (or starting point) on a tour of Spain as it is so far away from most other major destinations in Spain –if you aren’t going to pop across the border to France, these new routes will hopefully open up the rest of Europe to the budget traveler.