ARCHIVED - Traffic remains almost non-existent at Corvera airport: passenger numbers down by 97.4 per cent in March

Traffic at the Region of Murcia International Airport was just 2.6 per cent of the level reported in March 2019

The almost total cancellation of international travel in Europe during the winter continued to have a devastating effect on the Region of Murcia International Airport in Corvera in March, when passenger numbers remained negligible as the number of flights during the 31 days was just 57.

On board those 57 departures and arrivals, most of which were Air Binter flights to the Canary Islands and a few charter flights, were a mere 1,438 passengers, according to the figures made public by Aena, and while this figure is almost double the total for February it remains extremely low. Last March, despite Spain declaring its first national state of emergency in response to the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic in the middle of the month, there were still over 19,000 passengers passing through the terminal building, while 2019 brought a total of over 56,000 in the third month of the year.

In other words, the number has dropped by 97.4 per cent since March 2019, and with no international airlines resuming anything resembling normal service as yet it seems unlikely that Corvera will become a hive of activity at least until the summer.

It may be that the improvement of the pandemic situation in Britain leads to a return of services during the next few months, but the requirements for “health passports” or equivalent documentation are still not clear yet and while flight schedules are being re-designed it may also be that airlines prefer to establish connections to the larger airport of Alicante-Elche before resuming Costa Cálida flights.

Neither is Corvera the only airport suffering; Alicante airport lost 93.8 per cent of its traffic in March in comparison with the figures from 2019, despite the much-publicised return of a few flights between the Costa Blanca and Germany, and the decrease in the whole of the Aena network in Spain amounted to 60.6 per cent in comparison with last year and 84 per cent compared to 2019.

In Spain as a whole, Aena reports that the number of passengers arriving and departing on both international and domestic flights during the first quarter of 2021 reached 8.24 million, representing a decrease of 80.4 per cent from last year and 84.4 per cent from the year before. The busiest airports were, as ever, those of Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas (2.57 million passengers after a fall of 76.7 per cent since last year) and Barcelona El Prat (down by 86.1 per cent to 1.12 million), while the decimation of tourism has resulted in even more drastic falls in levels of activity at airports on the Costas and the Balearic and Canary Islands.