ARCHIVED - July passenger numbers at Corvera airport reach 30 per cent of 2019 levels

UK flights account for only 32 per cent of passengers at Corvera 

The latest data published by airport management company Aena reveal that the number of passengers flying into or out of the Region of Murcia International Airport in Corvera in July was an impressive 48.1 per cent higher than in the same month last year, but of course the comparison is somewhat distorted by the fact that the start of summer in 2020 was still affected by the initial coronavirus lockdowns throughout Europe during the first wave of the Covid pandemic.

A more realistic comparison is with July 2019, and although the figures show that passenger numbers last month were 70 per cent lower than two years ago it is perhaps fairer to say that the data show signs that the level of traffic is recovering, after months during which Corvera reported as many as 98 per cent of passengers having been lost to the pandemic.

In this sense, the 42,381 passengers passing through the terminal building represent almost three times the number reported the month before, and although Murcia is one of the airports making the slowest recoveries among all of those in Spain, at least progress is being made.

Given the heavy dependence in the past on traffic from the UK, which until recently has been limited by British government restrictions, it is perhaps not surprising that Corvera continues to show one of the most dramatic losses in terms of 2-year passenger numbers, surpassed in July only by the airports of Girona (-82.3 per cent) and Reus (-87 per cent) in Catalunya.

Neighbouring Alicante-Elche airport is also struggling to recover from the pandemic and the number of passengers flying into or out of the Costa Blanca airport in July was still 56.5 per cent lower than two years ago.

UK passengers at Corvera

In pre-pandemic times flights between Murcia and the UK normally accounted for the vast majority of all passengers, but this July there were just 13,521 passengers on Corvera-UK flights, making up under 32 per cent of the total and still 88 per cent fewer than in July 2019.

The largest contributor to the total was domestic flights (38.6 per cent) and the new services to and from Morocco have proved so successful that they carried 5,586 passengers, or 13 per cent of the overall figure, marginally more than those travelling to and from Belgium.

By way of comparison, in July 2019 the number of people on Corvera-UK flights reached 109,147 and together with a further 11,325 flying between the Costa Cálida and Ireland they contributed 83 per cent of all traffic.

In short, at long last it seems safe to say that traffic is recovering at the Region of Murcia International Airport.

However, at the same time, despite the success of new domestic routes and services to and from Morocco, if flights to and from the UK are not reinstated by airlines it is hard to see passenger numbers returning to the numbers of two years ago, let alone the record levels which were reached in 2007 at the airport of Murcia-San Javier!

Image: Archive