Direct flights to Mallorca from Germany, the UK and Switzerland: the connectivity that makes a second home work

There is an unwritten rule among second-home owners: you go as often as it is easy to go. A house two hours and one direct flight away gets used twenty weekends a year; one four hours and a connection away, four. Mallorca plays in the top league, and this guide explains why, with facts and without exaggeration: which cities have direct flights all year, how long they take and what the last leg to Alcúdia is like.

Palma airport in numbers

• Traffic: over 30 million passengers a year, Spain's third-busiest airport and one of Europe's ten busiest in summer.
• Connections: more than 150 destinations in high season; in winter, the major European hubs keep daily flights.
• Distance to Alcúdia: about 55 kilometres, 45-55 minutes by car on the Ma-13 motorway, almost all of it dual carriageway.

From Germany: the best-connected country

Mallorca is, in practice, Germany's seventeenth federal state. No other Mediterranean island has so many direct flights from Germany, and many of them do not stop in winter.

• All year, daily or nearly: Frankfurt, Munich, Düsseldorf, Berlin, Hamburg, Stuttgart and Cologne. Operated by Lufthansa, Eurowings, Condor and, depending on the route, easyJet and Ryanair.
• In season practically every regional capital joins in: Nuremberg, Hanover, Bremen, Leipzig, Dresden, Münster, Dortmund…
• Flight time: between 2 h 10 min and 2 h 30 min depending on origin.

From the United Kingdom

• All year: London from Gatwick, Heathrow, Stansted and Luton; Manchester; and less frequently Birmingham, Edinburgh and Bristol. Operated by British Airways, easyJet, Ryanair, Jet2 and Vueling.
• In summer more than twenty British airports fly direct.
• Flight time: 2 h 20 min to 2 h 40 min.
• After Brexit: the flight is just as easy; what changed is the stay. A British citizen can spend 90 days in any 180 without a visa, and the EU Entry/Exit System has counted them automatically since 2025. If you want more, see the options for working remotely from Alcúdia.

From Switzerland and Austria

• Zurich: daily flights all year with Swiss, Edelweiss and easyJet. One of the most comfortable routes: 1 h 50 min.
• Basel and Geneva: direct most of the year with easyJet.
• Vienna: Austrian Airlines and low-cost carriers, with reduced frequency in winter.

And from the rest of Europe and Spain

• Amsterdam, Brussels, Paris, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Oslo: direct all year or nearly, with low frequency from November to March.
• Madrid and Barcelona: a de facto air shuttle, with flights almost hourly all year (Iberia, Vueling, Air Europa, Ryanair). Barcelona is a 45-minute flight; Madrid, 1 h 20 min.
• Ferry: from Barcelona, Valencia and Dénia, for those coming with a car. Seven to nine hours, with overnight sailings.

Winter: what really matters

Any holiday airport is well connected in August. An owner's question is what happens in February. At Palma, capacity drops by roughly two thirds compared with summer, but:

• Frankfurt, Munich, Düsseldorf, Zurich, London and Manchester keep daily flights all year round.
• Winter tickets sell out sooner than you would think, precisely because there are fewer aircraft: book weeks ahead, especially for Christmas and Easter.
• Wind cancellations are very rare; Palma is not a fog airport.

From the airport to your house

• Hire car: all the major companies are in the terminal. With a prior booking, you are on the motorway in twenty minutes.
• Your own car at the airport: many owners leave a car in a long-stay car park near the terminal. It is the most convenient option if you come every two or three weeks.
• Taxi: a rank just outside arrivals and a direct ride to Alcúdia, with official fares that vary with the time of day.
• Bus: there is a scheduled line from the airport to Alcúdia and Port d'Alcúdia, more frequent in season. Cheap, but with luggage and family it drags.
• Real times, by season and with traffic, are in getting around the island.

Owners' tips

• Early morning in summer: Palma airport in July and August is among the most congested in Europe between 10 am and 2 pm. First flights of the day check in in half the time.
• Residents' discount: on flights to the mainland, it applies only to residents registered in the Balearics. If you register, it counts.
• Arrivals and departures: Alcúdia is at the opposite end of the island from the airport, and that has an advantage: you drive against Palma's morning traffic.

Conclusion

From Frankfurt, Zurich or London, Alcúdia is three hours door to door, with a direct flight any day of the year. That is what turns a second home into a house that actually gets used, rather than one visited in August. And it is one of the reasons, unglamorous but decisive, why Mallorca remains the island where people buy most.