ARCHIVED - Airport traffic figures for San Javier down in September

Nationally, Spanish airports enjoyed their best September ever

Air traffic figures were released this week for all airports forming part of the Aena Spanish airports network, the whole country recording postive growth of 5% for September and processing 21.02 million passengers during the ninth month of the year.  This is the 23rd consecutive month of increased traffic for Spanish airports, as well as being the best September ever recorded, and so far more than 161 million passengers have passed through the Aena installations during 2015, an overall increase of 5.2%.

However, San Javier is failing to match the recovery of the tourism sector in other parts of the country and air traffic through the Mar Menor airport actually fell during September by -4.4%.

September was the busiest month of the year so far at San Javier with 138,688 passengers using the terminal, but the figures are still way short of the boom years when the airport was at its busiest during the peak years of the construction boom while Polaris World was busy building residential tourism resorts in the Torre Pacheco municipality and advertising heavily on UK television.

During 2007 for example, the national passenger total was actually lower than this year at just over 20 million, but San Javier handled 214,921 passengers, so although this year’s total is still a considerable improvement on the passenger figures for the earlier part of the year, the airport was still 76,000 passengers down on peak levels.

This downward trend has been consistent right through the year, and in the first nine months of the year the airport has processed 908,343 passengers, a fall of -2.4% against the same period last year.

Murcia may just top the million mark this year, but with just 5 routes open until the end of the year and a greatly reduced flights schedule, it will be a close call.

During 2007 San Javier handled just over 2 million passengers, meaning traffic this year is likely to end up at half of its 2007 levels.

Expats, predictably, are less than happy about the situation, as for most people, certainly those from Ireland, Scotland and the south of the UK, the only option is Alicante. While the choice of routes is considerable from Alicante (72 routes) it’s still an extra journey and extra expense, and the majority of expats maintain that they would prefer to fly to San Javier but have only 2 choices: fly to Alicante, or don´t fly at all.
Sadly, some opt for the latter and Murcian businesses lose out.

Alicante, meanwhile, continues to hoover up Murcian passengers, and is set for another record year.

During September Alicante-Elche airport processed 1,097,645 passengers, its best September ever and an increase of 4.6% against September 2014. Alicante is set to break the 10 million passenger mark again this year, meaning Murcia is only handling a tenth of the traffic passing through Alicante.

The regional government is fully aware of the need to rectify this situation and it is to be hoped that a little more interest will be shown in the UK market when it finally opens Corvera airport, but for the moment, Alicante is reaping the rewards at the expense of Murcia-based businesses.