ARCHIVED - Aena denies Corvera airport closure

Travellers are reporting flight cancellations and are being forced to re-book from Alicante

There’s no doubt that it’s been a brutal year for the travel sector, in particular the airlines and tour operators, which have experienced catastrophic falls in passenger numbers, as well as for all of the businesses depending on tourism in its many guises.

On Monday Ryanair revealed that revenue fell by 78% to €1.18bn and traffic fell 80% to 17.1m in the first six months of the year, with 99% of the fleet grounded from mid-March to end June, and with a second England-wide lockdown now beginning on Thursday, and travel from England banned for a month, businesses on the Spanish costas face a bleak month ahead.

Some second holiday home owners had planned to head for Spain this autumn and flight bookings had picked up, but the double combination of both the Valencian and Murcian regional governments imposing movement restrictions, allied with the British Government decision at the weekend to lock down England and impose a travel ban from Thursday, dictates that flights will inevitably be further reduced as would-be holidaymakers are forced to stay in England.

In the short-term, flights will continue to make return journeys between Spain and the UK, as operators are not forced to refund seat fares if the planes complete their scheduled journeys regardless of occupancy levels, and there are holidaymakers currently in Spain wishing to get home and Spanish residents visiting friends and family in the UK, who will also wish to get back to their homes in Spain.

English holidaymakers currently abroad are not required to return to the UK by Thursday, but of course, the potential problem which could rear its head in the near future is that of flights being cancelled, making a return complicated.

Already cancellations are being announced, Jet2 being the first to slash its services and cancel flights and other operators have also begun pruning their schedules for November; only 30% of services scheduled before the announcement on Saturday are now likely to run.

There is also the tricky question of whether the lockdown in England will conclude at the end of November or continue into December, further complicating the plans of would-be travellers and of course, here in Spain the rising number of coronavirus cases has resulted in some regions requesting permission from the Spanish Government today to impose full regional lockdowns, similar to those experienced in the spring. At the moment, the Spanish government maintains that this will not happen, but we’re all learning how rapidly reassurances can go out of date during a worldwide pandemic!

All of which means one thing for travellers; less flights.

Corvera airport has had a rough year; during September it handled only 17,164 passengers, a fall of -86.9% when compared to September last year and this year to date it has lost 77.6% of its 2019 traffic so far.

With a strong dependence on UK traffic, the already sparse winter schedule will now dwindle even further and for the last few days speculation has been rife on social media sites that the airport is closing down.

It’s been reported in the regional Spanish media on more than one occasion this summer that negotiations between the operator and the regional government have been underway to renegotiate the concession through which the airport is operating due to the significant financial losses being incurred by Aena due to the coronavirus pandemic. The operator has denied any intention of closing the airport or surrendering the concession, although it is obvious that the virus will continue to generate uncertainty and affect air travel for some months to come.

Since the announcement from the British Government on Saturday, travellers have been trying to re-organise flights and many are reporting an almost complete absence of any flights from Corvera to their target destinations; some are also reporting the cancellation of their Corvera flight schedules and increasing numbers are being forced to travel from Alicante due to the lack of services from Corvera, hence the direct questions on social media as to whether the airport is closing down for the winter.

Aena today responded to our request for clarification with a simple one-liner: ” Murcia Region International Airport is operational”.

Operational? Absolutely.

Operating? Sadly, not as much as we'd like it to as we enter the 10th month of the coronavirus crisis....