Getting to Granada

There are flights to Granada from both MAD and BCN. By train, Madrid is the better choice. What's easiest depends partly on the scheduling. [Rome2rio.com]1 can help you identify your choices, but book directly with the airline or RENFE, the rail system.

Granada has a commercial airport; you may be able to buy a round trip ticket to Granada or a multi-city ticket, arriving in Granada, leaving from Madrid, or arriving in Madrid, leaving from Granada. What is your itinerary?

Have you searched for plane tickets?

What kind of flights have you seen for sale?

Did you check Google flights, take notes, and then search for plane tickets from American, Delta, and/or other airlines you saw in Google flights?

Buy your whole trip straight from just one airline.

Are you seeing Granada first, last, or between other cities?

We took the bus (coach) from Madrid to Granada and back, and enjoyed the trip.

You can fly non-stop from both Madrid and Barcelona. Furthermore, Madrid is a 3h & 30m direct train ride from Granada.

I wouldn't fly from Madrid to Granada unless it was the last part of a longer journey (such as from my home in the US). Once in downtown Madrid, it would be faster just to take the train.

I'd certainly explore a multi-city ticket into Granada and home from my last stop, but when I looked at that possibility a couple of years ago, I found that from at least some US origins, flying into Granada can be many hundreds of dollars more expensive than flying into Madrid or Barcelona.

I started my Spain trip in 2017 on a multi-city ticket from Canada to Granada via a flight change in Madrid. Flew home from Barcelona.
Flight eas under $100 more and saved the hassle of getting from the airport to train station in a city I didn't know, with jet lag. Arrived in Granada in time for lunch. Easy bus shuttle from Granada airport to town.

Check flights into Malaga, Sevilla, Jerez. I've flown from DC to all of them with single brief layovers. Overall, it depends on the full itinerary.

Pre-covid, Granada's airport had flights to Milan and London, so it wasn't actually necessary to arrive first elsewhere in Spain and then transfer to Granada. Hopefully these and other routes will be back sometime. However, these were Easyjet flights so you'd need to buy seperate tickets rather than a multi-city ticket.

If you arrive at Madrid or Barcelona airports, the simplest way would be to stay at the airport and fly onto Granada. That avoids the need to go into the Madrid/Barcelona city centre and then catch a train or coach. However, whilst this makes sense in theory, in practice it depends on how good the flight connection timings are and the cost.

Assuming, you do fly, it makes little difference in airborne time whether you get to Granada starting from Madrid or Barcelona.

If I were taking the train to Granada from Madrid or Barcelona, then I'd much prefer starting in Madrid. That would be faster and cheaper and give more and better options.

One of the great advantages of flying into Granada is that the airport is close to the city centre and it's easy to transfer by taxi. Indeed, it's easier getting to, for example, Plaza Nueva by taxi from the airport than it is by public transport from the railway station. But if you do arrive at the railway station (or the even more remote coach station), I'd take a taxi into the centre anyway. Dearer, sure, but money isn't everything and taxi is so much easier in this case.

You might àlso want to consider the options to Malaga airport since it is straightforward from there to Granada.

Thanks for all your information on getting to Granada. I appreciate that the responses were fully explained as to why they were given, it helps me make a decision based on so many options.