This first flight, on an Airbus A350, departed from Madrid airport at 11:55 am on October 27th, with 352 passengers on board, taking around 14 hours to land at Narita airport, at 10:45 am (local time) the following day.

This new route was created with the aim of expanding Iberia's presence in Asia, following the good results of the daily flight to Doha, Qatar, opened in December 2023. This operation is part of the promotional activities promoted by Madrid Turismo by IFEMA, Community of Madrid, Madrid City Council and IFEMA MADRID, with the collaboration of the companies and associations that make up the capital's Office of Tourism Specialists, including Iberia. The initiative also has the support of the central government through Turespaña.

The opening of this new market should generate, in the first year, 100 million euros for the GDP of both countries and generate around 1,900 direct and indirect jobs.

Iberia offers three weekly frequencies between Madrid and Tokyo, using Airbus A350 aircraft, with Madrid-Tokyo flights taking 14 hours and Tokyo-Madrid around 16 hours.

For Marco Sansavini, president and executive director of Iberia, “the opening of a new route always fills us with enthusiasm, but this one even more so as we had to suspend our flights to Tokyo due to the pandemic. From now on, we offer the only option that connects Spain directly, non-stop, to Japan, and we do this three times a week, which means around 90,000 seats between the two countries in the first year of operation. Our ambition is to increase flight frequencies by 2025 to offer travelers many more possibilities.”

Madrid-Tokyo flights will operate on Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays, with return flights on Mondays, Fridays and Sundays.