ARCHIVED - 5,000 passengers at Corvera airport in May as international travel re-starts

Traffic at the Region of Murcia International Airport rose by almost 5,000 per cent in May after the lockdown last year!

The almost total cancellation of international travel in Europe during the winter is now very gradually being reversed at the Region of Murcia International Airport in Corvera, and the data published by Aena relating to passenger numbers in May show that activity at the terminal was starting to resume even before the introduction of more international flights during June.

On the face of it, the number of people passing through the terminal building at Corvera during the month was a barely credible 4,953 per cent higher than in May 2020, but of course in May last year air travel – and indeed all travel - was practically non-existent due to the pandemic. In reality, the increase from 101 passengers to 5,104 is actually an insignificant one, and the total last month is still equivalent to only 4.2 per cent of the 121,000 in May 2019.

But the trend is an upward one. In April of this year there were only 79 landings and take-offs at Corvera airport while in May the figure rose to 132, and with flights resuming this month to and from destinations in the UK, Belgium and Morocco, as well as six domestic services, further increases can be expected during June.

On the other hand, how significant those increases might be will depend to a large extent on the situation regarding visitors from the UK, and the latest news is far from positive as the British government continues to keep Spain on its “amber list” of foreign travel destinations.

In Spain as a whole, Aena reports that the number of passengers arriving and departing on both international and domestic flights during the first five months of 2021 reached 17.8 million, representing a decrease of 82.3 per cent from the year before last. The busiest airports so far this year have been, as ever, those of Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas (4.82 million passengers after a fall of 79.7 per cent since 2019) and Barcelona El Prat (down by 87.5 per cent to 2.46 million).