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News Flash 23 March 2012
The initial offer from Iberia to sponsor the IMC with a 50% reduction on all tickets turned out to be misleading and of no interest to anybody. Contrary to their initial offer their current information refers to a fixed price which is 2,5 times higher than the price for their tickets sold online today (23 March). Contrary to their first offer which referred to all Iberia flights they now limit to the line Madrid - La Palma. We regret that the company Iberia provided such misleading information creating false hope for people. We recommend to compare different flight offers on the internet.
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You can either fly directly to La Palma (from Madrid daily or other few European cities weekly) or via the neighbouring islands Tenerife or Gran Canaria (including low cost) from where you can take a local flight or ferry to La Palma. The total round-trip cost to La Palma from Europe should be between 200 and 400 Euro per person.
Direct flights to La Palma from Europe
Few months ago (Dec 2011) Iberia is selling their daily direct flight Madrid - La Palma - Madrid for 189 Euro round trip. Right now (May 2012) you can buy a direct round-trip ticket with Iberia for 249 Euro You can book this via
Vuelos Baratos flight comparator or directly from
Iberia Airline.
Other direct flights to La Palma from Europe include Dusseldorf, Frankfurt, Munich, Stuttgart, Berlin, Hamburg, Nuremberg, Brussels, Amsterdam and Zurich, mostly once per week. Links to the airlines can be found on the
Astro Travels website.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Please make sure to use SPC airport code for Santa Cruz de La Palma, because there are many confusions about the name!
Indirect links to La Palma
There are many low cost links from many locations in Europe to the neighbouring islands Tenerife and Gran Canaria.
Via Tenerife (South or North):
There are two airports on Tenerife (Los Rodeos code TFN in the North and Reina Sofia TFS in the South) linked directly by many low cost airlines (especially to the South TFS airport) from many cities in Spain, England, Germany, the Netherlands, France, Ireland, Italy, Luxemburg, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Poland, Russia, Portugal, etc.
From Tenerife South you can take the ferry from the South harbour Los Cristianos to La Palma (after 6pm but not daily, cca 3 hr trip) or you could take the bus to the North Tenerife airport from where you have many local flights (hourly or half hourly) to La Palma (until 20:30). There are only some national Spanish flights landing in Tenerife North (TFN), but no international flights.
There are two local air companies in the Canaries, namely
Binter Canarias and
Islas Airlines, both operating flights to La Palma only from Tenerife North (TFN).
Via Gran Canaria:
There are many direct low cost flights to Gran Canaria (code LPA) from many European countries: England, Germany, Netherlands, Ireland, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Switzerland, Belgium, Austria, Czech Republic, Italy, Russia, etc. From the same Gran Canaria airport you have some direct flights to La Palma (17:30, 19:00, 19:20 and 20:00).
How to reach IMC2012 apart-hotel Las Olas
Your IMC 2012 accommodation, the workshop(s), and the accommodation of the optional tourist package are all in the apart-hotel Las Olas, while the IMC conference will take place in the Hotel Taburiente. Both the Las Olas and Taburiente hotels are very conveniently located in the tourist resort Los Cancajos, at only 5 min by car between the airport of La Palma and the capital Santa Cruz de La Palma (about 7 Euro by taxi which could be shared or 1.30 Euro/pers by bus each half hour during business days and each hour during weekends). Everything in Los Cancajos is within an easy 5 min walking distance.
More information
The Guide to Plan your IMC2012 Travel to La Palma (PDF document 2 MB) gives you extended information about your possibilities to travel to La Palma, including links, European airports linked directly, timetables, connections, maps, etc.
For checking and booking your flights, we recommend
Vuelos Baratos comparator. If you have doubts or need more assistance with your travel planning, feel free to write us at imc2012 (at) imo.net.
The 2012 EPSC of September 24 - 28 in Madrid, Spain
This IMC precedes the 2012 EPSC which will be on the way home from La Palma for most participants. This offers both amateurs and professional astronomers the possibility to optimize traveling efforts and costs to attend both the IMC and EPSC. See also
http://www.epsc2012.eu/.
