European flag carrier Air France is to resume services into Uruguay from April this year after a 12 year hiatus. The SkyTeam alliance member is to offer five weekly flights to Montevideo as an extension of its existing route between its Paris Charles de Gaulle (CDG) hub and the Argentine capital Buenos Aires from April 16, 2013. The carrier previously served Montevideo on a weekly basis in 2000 and 2001, also via Buenos Aires, closing the link from March 25, 2001.

During the northern hemisphere summer 2013 season the route is being served with a Boeing 777-200, equipped with 308 seats (34 in Business class, 24 in Premium Economy and 250 in Economy) but The HUB can reveal that for the winter schedule, from October 27, 2013, a larger 777-300ER will be used. Air France and its sister carrier KLM currently serve 14 destinations across South America with 125 weekly departures from its hubs at Paris CDG and Amsterdam Schiphol.

“We strongly believe in the South American growth story, it’s a dynamic market where we have a long history and strong leadership position. Opening Montevideo extends our reach even further and we continue to evaluate new destinations and extend capacity on existing routes as opportunities arise,” said Patrick Roux, EVP Americas, Air France-KLM.

The resumption of flights by Air France follows shortly after its SkyTeam partner Air Europa revealed that it too would start flights to Montevideo this summer from Madrid and fill the void following Iberia’s forthcoming departure from that market. The Spanish flag carrier, a member of the rival oneworld alliance, currently offers the only non-stop service between Europe and Uruguay but is closing the loss-making route as part of a network restructuring to ease its financial losses.

In 2011 an estimated 9,000 bi-directional O&D passengers travelled between Paris and Montevideo with the largest traffic flows routing via Sao Paulo with Brazilian carrier TAM Airlines. During this same period around 199,000 bi-directional O&D passengers travelled between Europe and Uruguay and in the table below we highlight the top ten European markets for travellers to the South American country. This analysis shows that France is the third largest market for point-to-point demand between Europe and Uruguay, with a 10.0 per cent share of traffic.