Delta Air Lines has begun flying on a new route linking Malaga with New York’s John F Kennedy International Airport.

The first non-stop flight of the four times a week service touched down at Malaga last week, where passengers were greeted by a high-profile reception committee.

Among the dignitaries welcoming travellers were regional tourism councillor Luciano Alonso, US consul Roberta Aaron and Delta’s vice-chairman Frank Jahagin.

Authorities in Andalusia have spent more than €3 million (£2.4 billion) on promoting the service, in the hope of attracting more US visitors to the region.

Local media reports stated that 70 per cent of seats have already been booked for the first month of the service, prompting Delta to indicate that daily flights are a possibility.

Delta recently announced plans to upgrade the in-flight entertainment facilities on its aircraft. Among the choices it hopes to make available to passengers on an on-demand basis are video games, hundreds of films, music and HBO television shows.

A British airport has revealed that demand for services to Spain has increased significantly in the last year.

According to Birmingham International Airport (BIA), passenger numbers on flights to Barcelona have gone up by more than 180 per cent.

Meanwhile, growth was also recorded on flights to places such as Murcia, Almeria, Alicante and Palma.

This has helped BIA achieve record passenger numbers in March 2008, with more than 730,000 passing through its two terminals.

The figure is 8.4 per cent more than the amount recorded a year earlier and comes after passenger numbers in February also reached record levels.

Peter Vella, business development director at BIA, commented: “It is the second straight month of record-breaking passenger figures, which is obviously great news as we strive to break the ten million passenger barrier this year.”

Spain’s popularity among tourists from the UK was recently highlighted by the Association of British Travel Agents, which described it as their “outright favourite”.