Aena reportedly counting on Ryanair transfer to Corvera airport

The Murcia government hopes that politics won´t get in the way of  the opening of Corvera airport

Earlier this year a vote of no confidence in PP leader Mariano Rajoy forced a change in national government, the result being that the new PSOE government changed a number of key political appointments, substituting individuals appointed by, and sympathetic to the PP, for those selected by the PSOE.

This is standard procedure every time there is a change in the national government, a similar process occurring after regional elections as power shifts between the various political parties, and during the last couple of months this has affected the planning of various key projects relating to the Murcia Region and provoked a volume of political debate and argument over the funding and future of certain projects.

One of these is inevitably the transfer of operations between the airport of San Javier and the new airport at Corvera, as the new concessionary for the airport is Aena, a partly state-owned concern, the president of which is a political appointment. The degree of priority given to the procedures to open the airport which must be undertaken are also now the territory of a PSOE, rather than a PP government.

This week it has been revealed that Diego Peñarrubia is almost certain to be named president of the Aena subsidiary which is charge of the new Region of Murcia International Airport in Corvera, sparking off a new round of political comment about the imminent opening of the airport.

If Diego Peñarrubia is appointed, it is safe to say that he owes his new role to his support for the regional PSOE party, for whom he acts as an adviser on infrastructures in Murcia, and to the abrupt change in the Spanish government this May when the PSOE took power. For this reason, it can be anticipated that he will face criticism from the PP government in the Region of Murcia, and Fernando López Miras, the president of the Murcia government has already reiterated that the former Aena president Jaime García-Legaz, who was nominated by the PP, “organized everything” so that Corvera airport could open next January.

Despite his nomination for the non-executive post being supported by the Ministry of Development, Sr Peñarrubia  has stated that he is not taking his appointment for granted yet, and is awaiting the outcome of an Aena board meeting. Should he be offered the post, his first job will be to meet Aena representatives in order to be informed on what still has to be done before the anticipated opening date of 15^th January 2019.

At the same time, Patricio Valverde, the minister for Development in the Murcian regional government, which is PP, has stressed that everything is already in place for the first flights to land and take off in four months’ time, while expressing the hope that no delays will occur “as was the case with the AVE” (referring to the national government’s decision to abandon the temporary overground arrival of Spain’s high-speed rail network in the city of Murcia, putting back the date of the first trains, a major change from the plans approved by the former PP national government).

Fully aware that the airport could become a campaigning issue in the run-up to next year’s regional elections, Sr Peñarrubia has already pulicly expressed his view that the facility is a project which belongs to the Region and that everyone involved needs to collaborate in ensuring that it is a success, while the concern of the regional government is that their efforts to open the airport and resolve the long-standing dispute with the former concessionary will not be upstaged in the election campaigning of next spring when the airport finally opens.

For most expat readers however, their key priority is making plans for next year, booking flights to and from their various home countries and arranging visits with friends and family, so their principal concern is whether they will be flying into San Javier or Corvera and whether the necessary infrastructure to facilitate their transfers from airport to final destination will be fully operational.

The Spanish government formally approved the closure of San Javier on 14th January and opening of Corvera on the 15th January several weeks ago, but there is still uncertainty about which airlines will operate from the airport at Corvera.

Easyjet and Jet2 have both confirmed that they will be operating from Corvera and are taking bookings for flights to the airport, but to date no formal announcement has been made by the largest operator at San Javier; Ryanair.

An article published in regional newspaper La Verdad reports that although no formal agreement has been reached with Ryanair regarding the transfer of flights from Murcia-San Javier to Corvera in January, Aena are confident that there will be no hitch.

Their reasoning is that Ryanair is among the airlines which have already requested their winter season flight slots at San Javier, so it can be assumed that the low-cost giant will make the move to inland Murcia from the shore of the Mar Menor along with the others, although as stated above, this has yet to be officially confirmed. Ryanair is selling flights to Murcia next year as normal, but without specifically listing Corvera as the destination, and on social media posts are circulating saying that the Spanish government has confirmed that all flights from San Javier will automatically transfer to Corvera after 14th January. In fact, the only statement made by the Spanish government was the official authorisation for the closure of San Javier on the 14th, the logical conclusion being that no more civilian flights will land at the airport after that date; the decision of whether to operate at Corvera is a commercial decision to be made by each commercial airline, although it would be logical to assume that flights will transfer from one airport to the other as they will be unable to alnd at San Javier after 14th January.

Ryanair currently provides more flights than any other company at San Javier, operating routes to nine of the 16 destinations available, followed by Jet2.com, Easyjet, British Airways, Tui and Norwegian Air.

Most of the routes are to UK destinations, and logically, the UK accounts for the largest percentage of passengers currently using the San Javier airport which has reported its best year for passenger traffic since the start of the economic crisis in 2010. At that time 2 millon passengers used the airport, and this year traffic is on track to complete 2018 with around 1.2 million passengers.

Meanwhile, airport parking concerns are making plans to open installations nearer to Corvera airport and every day a concerned would-be traveller asks about the availability of bus routes and taxis as they attempt to book flights for next summer, with the question still unresolved about whether their Ryanair flight will be landing at Corvera or whether they should book to fly into Alicante instead.

The appointment of Diego Peñarrubia should be confirmed during a meeting of the Aena board, and on Friday he is scheduled to meet with regional president Fernando López Miras to discuss other key infrastructural projects relating to the Region.

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