Air Europa, Spain's second largest carrier, has started four-times-weekly flights from Madrid to Miami, with connections to several destinations in the USA, Central America and the Caribbean.

The new service, employing A330-200 aircraft with 12-14 tons capacity per flight, operates on Monday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

Air Europa's cargo business is managed by Leisure Cargo on a worldwide basis. Its' GSSA for both Spain and Portugal, CRS Airline Representatives, will feed cargo from both countries using Air Europa's three daily departures from Lisbon to Madrid, its daily flights from Porto, Lisbon and Faro via Palma to Madrid, and road feeders.

Leisure Cargo is initially focusing on traffic to the US southern states key destinations of Houston, Dallas and Atlanta. Support for the new services has been immediate, with full loads reported on the first flights, and Atlanta proving a particularly popular destination.

CRS MD Toni Beato says: 'Leisure Cargo services are well-known for their reliability, and are always a popular and well-supported new option for any route they open. These new Miami services have great potential for our operations in both Spain and Portugal.'

Leisure Cargo represents 17 international airlines with a total of over 400 aircraft, managing belly capacities through its Total Air Cargo Management concept.

CRS is Leisure Cargo's GSSA for Spain and Portugal, and has a network of 7 branches in Spain. In 2008 it opened a subsidiary in Portugal, with offices in Lisbon and Porto. The company was a founder member of the EGSAC GSSA network, which comprises 32 members with 127 bases in 33 countries.