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Date Published: 15/01/2024

Corvera airport turns 5 years old today: A look back... and forward

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How successful has the Region of Murcia’s airport really been since it opened in 2019?

Corvera airport turns 5 years old today: A look back... and forward

The Region of Murcia International Airport in Corvera turns five years old this Monday January 15. Five years since the airport in central Murcia was opened, in a ceremony presided over by the King of Spain himself, to replace the old airport at San Javier.

A lot was promised back then – the creation of 20,000 jobs, millions more passengers – but how has the reality matched up to those promises of 2019?

How has central Murcia benefitted from the opening of the airport?

Work first started on the feasibility studies for Corvera airport in 2008, and they suggested that Murcia would be able to steal 3 million passengers from Alicante’s El Altet airport.

The projected expansion back then, in a time just before the financial crash, was for Corvera airport to reach and 32 million passengers by 2030. However, that dream seems a long way off since it is barely managing to handle 1 million people a year right now. The latest figures put it at 877,796 for 2023.

The small towns and villages around the airport – including the town of Corvera, for which the airport is named, but also places like Los Martínez del Puerto and Valladolises which have barely 1,000 inhabitants – were promised loads of new jobs and investment, though in reality little of that has so far come to pass.

For instance, it took local landowners many years and lengthy lawsuits to collect the money for the terrain that was expropriated from them for the building of the airport. A large amount of this land was actually in Valladolises, although in the end the name of the airport (at least for now) has made Corvera a household word rather than Valladolises.

What has blossomed has been the area around Corvera’s industrial estate thanks to the Amazon logistics centre which opened there for strategic purposes. This has been a good generator of jobs for the local community, and more new companies are expected to base their operations there, close to the airport, where they can take advantage of cargo imports and exports from the airport. Plans are currently underway to introduce Border Inspection Posts at the airport to allow for importation and exportation outside the European Union.

The settling of Amazon in Corvera means rental prices have risen in Corvera, Los Martínez del Puerto and Valladolises and these small towns have managed to fend off the spectre of depopulation – the dreaded ‘España vacía’ or ‘Empty Spain’ that is seeing many small villages around the country left with a dwindling number of inhabitants and very few young people to secure their future.

As well as Amazon workers, a not insignificant number of British, Irish and Belgian people have also arrived in the area, settling in the housing estates which were built before the property bubble burst, like Corvera Golf Resort, and some of which remained virtual ghost towns for more than a decade. The Mayor of the municipality of Corvera, María del Mar García, even alleges that the golf resort “is already 80% inhabited”.

Corvera Golf Resort is around twenty minutes from Murcia city and just half an hour from Cartagena, and investment is once again pouring in to try to match the increased demand in the area.

The airport itself

But the airport itself continues to underperform. In 2023, despite the fact that the Region of Murcia welcomed record numbers of tourists, Corvera airport barely gained any more passengers than it did in 2022 and is well down on the numbers it was bringing in in 2019, not to mention the many more who used to fly to San Javier.

This has been blamed in large part on the lack of year-round international destinations and the historically poor public transport links to places of tourist interest, especially the coastal areas of the Mar Menor and Mazarrón. Then again, the continuing aftershock of Brexit and its effect on the ability of British citizens to travel and spend time in Europe took its toll, as did Coronavirus when it effectively shut down all vacations for a two-year period.

That said, everywhere in Europe suffered from Brexit, and the whole world was damaged by Covid. That doesn’t entirely account for the fact that Murcia has suffered so much while airports like Málaga Costa del Sol and Alicante have managed to bounce back strong and hard to experience unprecedented growth.

At the same time, lots of new investment is being pumped into Corvera airport now to increase and diversify the flight destinations available. This December just gone, two new flight paths to Madrid and Barcelona were launched, operated by the airline Volotea, who were awarded a 2.4-million-euro subsidy from the Region of Murcia government to promote and revive the airport.

In addition, new buses have just been launched to connect the cities of Murcia and Cartagena with the airport in this low season.

In conclusion, it has been a rocky start for the Region of Murcia International Airport, and Brexit and the Covid-19 pandemic didn’t help. But there is still hope for growth, especially since there is no alternative. Five years is not a long time. Corvera is still in its infancy, so let’s give it time to grow and mature before we judge it too harshly.

Image 1: Turismo Región de Murcia

Image 2: Amazon