New OAG figures show 3.2 million seats available between the two countries this month, up 2.5% since August, but down more than 38% compared to September 2019. Capacity just outstrips US-Mexico at 3.16 million.

OAG said: “Capacity between Spain-UK has levelled off this month after climbing consistently over the summer months. Carriers have added just 2.5% more seats this month, and capacity in this market is sitting at just below two-thirds of 2019 levels.”

The next biggest UK market is to Greece, with 1.3 million seats, down 4.8% on September 2019 but up slightly on last month.

The figures also show the huge effect of the ban on UK travellers to the US. This month will see fewer than 764,000 transatlantic seats on offer, a fall of 68% on September 2019 but an increase of almost 29% on August this year.

There are fewer seats available from the UK to the US than to Portugal, which has just over 765,000 on offer, itself a 27% drop on 2019.

UK-Italy is the final route pairing to make OAG’s Top 20 Country Pairs, with 682,000 seats, down nearly 62% on 2019, but up 9.5% on last month.

Western Europe’s airline capacity as a whole is down 36% since September 2019 to 72.4 million.

Ryanair and easyJet were the only UK or Irish carriers to make this month’s OAG top 20 global airlines chart. Ryanair was fifth and easyJet twelfth. OAG said easyJet had reduced capacity this month by 11%.