Iberia schedules earliest Europe-US flight for winter with midnight Madrid-Dallas service

The early timing is designed to connect passengers arriving from various European cities onto the overnight transatlantic flight. Upon arrival in Dallas at approximately 05:30 local time, travelers can connect onward with numerous American Airlines departures; both carriers codeshare on around sixty destinations across the US. Iberia’s return flight departs Dallas at 13:55 and arrives back in Madrid during peak morning arrival hours for optimal connectivity.

"Like Iberia's overnight flights to South America, its after-midnight departure to Texas will be fed by large numbers of flights arriving from across Europe. It will complement partner American's much less tiring 12:40 departure to the Lone State."

This approach mirrors strategies used by other airlines in past seasons. Turkish Airlines previously scheduled New York JFK and Miami departures as early as 00:40 from Istanbul Airport. For winter 2025-2026 specifically, Turkish Airlines has only one similarly early flight—a Miami-bound Boeing 787-9 leaving Istanbul at 02:10 several days per week.

If this scheduling experiment does not yield improved results or increased market share for Iberia and American Airlines during winter operations, it may not return in subsequent seasons.

"Both Iberia and American must be confident of growing competitiveness and market share to make such a change. If the 00:55 departure time doesn't return in winter 2026/2027, we will know it wasn't worth it."