ARCHIVED - Public bus service contract to be amplified at Corvera airport

A new 5-year contract is to be put out to tender by the Murcia government

The regional government of Murcia has announced that a contract is to be awarded to run the public bus services already in operation at the Region of Murcia International Airport in Corvera and that a 5-year concession will be put out to tender to operate all of the services.

At the moment the routes already offered by Interbus offer passengers the chance to travel between the airport and the coastal and golf resorts of the Costa Cálida as well as the cities of Murcia and Cartagena, and the intention of the government is to ensure that no-one is put off using Corvera by a lack of public transport. This will be done by unifying them as part of an “Aerobus” package, the contract for which will stipulate that it marks the end of the routes which were set up on a provisional basis when the airport opened on 15^th January 2019.

The company awarded the contract will have to have at least six coaches at its disposal, none of them over seven years old, and no subsidy will be offered by the government. Priority will be given to those candidates using low-emissions vehicles as a secondary objective is to reduce congestion on access roads to the airport and thus cut down on the release of environmentally harmful exhaust fumes. In addition, the vehicles must be usable by passengers with limited mobility, according to a set of conditions which are to be officially made public before the end of the year.

It is also established that each coach must be equipped with screens showing up-to-date flight information, wi-fi and a communications system with which to offer information to passengers in three languages, and that the vehicles will be subject to the corporate image requirements of the government.

It is estimated that the costs for the eventual supplier of this service will be in the region of 930,000 euros, while the benefits will of course depend on the number of passengers using it. Despite passenger numbers in the first year of flights at Corvera having been significantly lower than in the previous twelve months at the airport of Murcia- San Javier, which closed to civilian traffic on 14^th January to make way for the new facility, there are grounds for optimism that they will begin to rise again in 2020, and it will be interesting to see how many companies bid for the contract when the preliminary procedures for putting it out to tender are completed.

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