Valencia recovers direct connection with New York

Valencia will once again have a direct flight connection with New York, fifteen years after Delta Airlines suspended the route it operated between 2009 and 2012. United Airlines has included Manises airport in the largest international expansion in its history and will begin flying to Newark in June 2027. The announcement ends more than a decade of attempts, meetings and presentations to airlines by the Generalitat Valenciana and Valencia City Council, who have insisted for years on recovering a route considered strategic for both tourism and economic relations with the United States.

The flight will connect Manises with Newark airport, where United Airlines has its base for New York City, located 24 kilometres from the city, operating three times a week. The route forms part of the addition of ten new international cities to the United network and will be operated using the Airbus A321X.

The announcement means recovering a connection that Valencia lost in 2012, when Delta decided to cancel the flight linking Manises with John F. Kennedy airport. The company launched the route in June 2009 and even proposed extending it until October and transforming it into a daily service due to strong occupancy figures. However, it eventually abandoned the link due to a lack of profitability, despite achieving an average occupancy rate of over 80% with four weekly frequencies in each direction.

Since then, the recovery of the flight has featured regularly in the tourism strategies of the Generalitat and Valencia City Council. Both organisations have held meetings over the years with leading American and European airlines, presenting studies on the growth of the North American market and arguing for the capacity of Valencia to sustain a transatlantic route.

The councillor for Tourism, Innovation and Investments and president of the Visit Valencia Foundation, Paula Llobet, described the announcement as “magnificent news for Valencia and the result of a strategy we have been working on for years together with Turisme Comunitat Valenciana and Valencia Chamber of Commerce. Recovering the direct connection with New York is a historic event for our connectivity and allows us to advance in one of our main objectives: growing in long-haul markets and attracting higher value-added tourism, such as American tourists, who have higher average spending and longer stays, and who also travel throughout the year.”

At the end of 2015, Visit Valencia was already negotiating the possible return of the connection for 2017. Without success, in 2018 the new director of Valencia Airport, Joaquin Rodriguez, publicly identified the recovery of New York as one of his top priorities. Aena was working jointly at the time with Tourism Valencia and the Provincial Tourism Board to regain the direct air link with the US. Institutional pressure intensified from 2022. The Generalitat brought together representatives from eleven airlines and airports in Valencia during an aerial connectivity event attended by companies including United Airlines. The then regional secretary for Tourism, Francesc Colomer, also highlighted the priority of the flight given the spending power of North American tourists and their interest in Valencian culture and gastronomy.

That conference also served to observe the operation of new connections United had launched from Newark to cities like Palma de Mallorca and Tenerife. The use of smaller, more efficient aircraft opened an opportunity for European destinations that did not act as major hubs, a model into which Valencia aimed to fit. In March 2023, Turisme Comunitat Valenciana organised a mission to New York with sector representatives to present the destination, open market opportunities and present arguments to airlines, a trip repeated in 2025 during a meeting with Delta Airlines.

The change of regional and municipal government in 2023 did not alter the objective. Just weeks after taking office, the then regional minister of Tourism, Nuria Montes, and the president of the Valencia Chamber of Commerce, Jose Vicente Morata, met with a delegation from Delta Airlines to study a direct connection between Valencia and the United States. The Generalitat argued that the airport met the conditions to link with a major US hub and that sufficient tourism and business demand existed. In recent years, insistence on the flight was present in all editions of international tourism fairs such as Fitur, World Travel Market in London and ITB in Berlin.

The Consell even pointed to the summer of 2024 as the horizon to recover the connection and assured it was negotiating with various companies. Simultaneously, Valencia City Council maintained its own contacts. Tourism councillor Paula Llobet explained at the time that the route was essential to capture visitors with higher spend and longer average stays, but also to strengthen the city’s ties with American innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystems. In 2025, regional secretary for Tourism Jose Manuel Camarero held meetings with Delta Airlines, United Airlines and other carriers with the mission of establishing the link. Such was the interest in having a direct route with the US that regional minister Marian Cano put other destinations like Miami, Dallas or Orlando on the table as alternatives.

The launch of the Valencia-New York connection comes after several years of strong growth in the US market, even though travelers previously had to reach Valencia via layovers in Madrid, Paris, Amsterdam, Lisbon, Frankfurt or other European airports. The United States has become one of the main international markets for the city, and in certain months competes for the top position among foreign hotel guests in Valencia. In 2025, American tourists generated 280,455 overnight stays in Valencia, close to 4.7% of the 5.96 million recorded during the year. The US thus ranked as the city’s fifth-largest international market, behind Italy, the Netherlands, Germany and the United Kingdom, surpassing France.

Data from Turisme Comunitat Valenciana estimates that the city received around 63,000 tourists from the United States last year out of a total of 3.31 million foreign visitors. However, this figure does not equal airport passengers, as it includes those who entered Spain through other infrastructure and continued their journey to Valencia by train or road. The weight of the market continued growing in 2026. During May, Americans represented 9.9% of hotel guests in the city, the same share as the United Kingdom. In July, their share reached 11.1%, becoming the top international market for establishments in Valencia.

The president of the Generalitat, Juanfran Perez Llorca, noted on Monday that connecting Valencia with the United States is “excellent news for the Valencian Community and for the tourism sector as a whole”, as it “advances a strategic connection with the United States and confirms the growing interest of the North American market in our destination”. The mayor of Valencia, Maria Jose Catala, also celebrated the opening of the route and its potential effects on the city’s economic and international profile. “That Valencia is increasingly better connected is good news. The arrival of the new direct route with New York reinforces our international position and our capacity to create opportunities and attract talent. A city open to the world that bets on quality growth,” she stated.

“This route connects us directly with one of the main tourism markets in the world, but also opens up huge possibilities for Valencians. Being able to fly directly to New York improves our external connectivity, facilitates leisure and business travel and, through the United Airlines network, expands the possibilities of connecting to numerous destinations in the United States and the American continent,” stated tourism councillor Paula Llobet.

The new route fits within the shift in strategy being carried out by the Visit Valencia Foundation, which has progressively redirected its promotional strategy towards markets and demand profiles capable of generating a greater positive impact on the city. In this context, the Foundation has spent the last three years intensifying its promotional activity in the United States and the wider North American market.

Currently, the Visit Valencia Foundation, alongside Turisme Comunitat Valenciana, is developing the Plan America aimed at the United States, Canada and Mexico, described by the municipal entity as “priority markets due to their growth potential, the expansion of their air connectivity with Spain and their affinity with the Mediterranean lifestyle”. The strategy seeks to reinforce Valencia’s positioning and attract higher-value visitors year-round, particularly those interested in culture, gastronomy and experiences.

In the case of the United States, data from FOCUS, the Visit Valencia Foundation’s Tourism Intelligence System, shows a profile closely aligned with this goal: travellers who plan more than 120 days in advance, travel throughout the year and demonstrate high spending capacity. In 80% of cases, their average daily spend ranges between 150 euro and 400 euro. Furthermore, New York is among the top source markets for search queries for the city, alongside Washington and Boston on the East Coast, according to the Foundation.