The Diplomat
Angolan state-owned airline TAAG will connect Luanda with Madrid from 27 June with two weekly flights, thus recovering direct connections between Spain and Angola, which were suspended in 2016.
Today, TAAG will sign a code-sharing agreement with Iberia at an event to be held in Madrid, which will be attended by the Angolan Minister of Transport, Ricardo D’Abreu, who will later meet with his Spanish colleague, Raquel Sánchez.
The recovery of the direct connection between the capitals of Spain and Angola was something sought by both countries given the increase in bilateral relations, including economic relations, between the two countries, as evidenced by the fact that last year there was an exchange of high-level visits. The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, travelled to Luanda in April, together with a large delegation of businessmen, and in September the President of Angola, João Lourenço, came to Spain.
A few days ago, Angola was one of the countries invited to the Imex Fair (Impulso Exterior), which was attended by a large delegation headed by the Minister of Industry and Tourism, Víctor Francisco Dos Santos Fernández, and which included a hundred businessmen from different sectors, such as industry, commerce, agriculture, tourism, construction, oil and gas, technology and other areas.
Angola wants to attract Spanish investment and increase its trade relations with our country, so the recovery of direct flights between Madrid and Luanda may favour these intentions.
Iberia operated the Luanda-Madrid route and vice versa between 2011 and 2016, when it abandoned its operations due to lack of demand.
So far TAAG, which has several destinations to African capitals, flies in Europe only to Lisbon and Porto, and, in America, to Sao Paulo and Havana. The agreement with Iberia will allow Angolan airline passengers to connect in Madrid with the Spanish airline’s destinations, mainly in Europe and Latin America.
The first of the flights will take place on the night of Sunday 26 June, between Luanda and Madrid, in a Boeing 777-300 aircraft, with a duration of seven and a quarter hours. TAAG will fly on Sundays and Thursdays from Luanda to Madrid and on Mondays and Fridays from Madrid to Luanda.
