First flights land at Corvera airport

Controversy has dogged the Corvera project for the last two decades

After 18 years the long-running saga of the new Region of Murcia International Airport in Corvera finally came to a successful end on Tuesday morning, when the first passenger flight landed 20 minutes early at 10.05 with passengers from East Midlands airport in the UK on board and the facility was finally up and running after almost 20 years.

This was followed by the arrival of the Easyjet service from Bristol at 10.22, (23 minutes ahed of schedule), and with two aircraft on the apron awaiting their departures on their return flights the new facility was truly up and running at long last.

The baton of civilian air transport was thus passed on to Corvera after half a century of flights at the airport of Murcia-San Javier, although it was not until the 1990s that international services became common at the aerodrome on the shore of the Mar Menor. With the closure of San Javier on Monday night and the opening of the facility in Corvera in Tuesday morning the new airport, which will eventually be named after Murcia-born aviation pioneer Juan de la Cierva, takes over the role as the “gateway to the Costa Cálida” after almost two decades of argument, controversy, setbacks and changes in plan, with the challenge of first maintaining the level of service at San Javier (almost 1.3 million passengers in 2018) and then building towards the eventual goal of 4 million in 25 years’time.

There is inevitably some sadness to see the doors close to passengers at San Javier, where the airport was twice named the best in Europe with fewer than 2 million passengers per year by Airports Council International, but the opening of Corvera is accompanied by hopes of a boost to tourism and a sense of optimism regarding the creation of employment and the generation of economic activity.

Of course, there are some clouds on the horizon. Not only does Corvera have to compete with the far larger airport of Alicante-Elche only an hour’s drive away – there were almost 14 million passengers passing through the airport of the Costa Blanca last year, and there is a suspicion that Aena may treat Corvera as little more than an overflow facility – there is also the unquantified effect that Brexit could have on passenger numbers at the new airport. It has to be remembered that almost 80 per cent of passengers at San Javier in 2018 were on board flights to and from the UK, and although efforts have been made in recent years to open up more markets, it is not hard to see this dependence on just one nation as a weakness.

It was as long ago as 2003 that the project to create the airport in Corvera was recognized as being in the national interests of Spain, and in the meantime there have been moments when it seemed possible that the infrastructure would never open. Even since the building was completed in 2012 it has remained unopened and unused for over 6 years, and although it is now at last in service it has come at great economic and political cost.

In political terms, the project has lasted longer than the terms in office of four regional presidents and numerous regional ministers for Infrastructures, some of whom fell into the trap of naming opening dates which then had to be postponed indefinitely. And in economic terms, when the first management contract (with Aeromur) was rescinded the regional government insisted that the airport would not cost a single euro to taxpayers in the Region of Murcia: unfortunately, though, the government is still paying interest on the 182-million-euro loan for which it acted as guarantor so that Aeromur could complete the construction, which is estimated to have cost over 250 million euros in total.

Potted history of the Corvera airport project

A history of the Corvera project as reflected in Murcia Today articles over the last decade can be found here, but the first seeds were sown as long ago as the end of the 1990s, when the intention was announced by the regional government for Aena to run a new airport, eliminating the restrictions placed on San Javier by the need to make timetables compatible with military activity.

But the first setback was not slow in coming: in 2000 a policy change was implemented by the Spanish government which effectively removed the obstacles to further growth at San Javier, eventually resulting in the construction of a second runway, leading to a situation where while the Murcia government was promoting Corvera, their counterparts in Madrid were improving facilities at San Javier. This even caught the eye of the EU, which warned of the resulting overlapping of three neighbouring airports (including Alicante-Elche).

With Aena backing the expansion of San Javier, in 2007 the construction and management contract at Corvera was awarded to the Aeromur consortium, led by construction giant Sacyr, accompanied by growth forecasts which can now be seen as far-fetched: 5 million passengers per year when the airport opened (originally expected in 2011) and 14 million after 40 years. This was in a year when the number of passengers at San Javier reached 2 million for the only time and perhaps such optimism can be forgiven, but with the collapse of the property market and the onset of economic crisis the following year the outlook changed markedly.

By 2009 Aeromur had run into financial difficulties, and the regional government had to act as guarantor for a 182-million-euro bank loan in order for construction to be completed. In 2012 the terminal and runway were declared complete but Aeromur demanded a financial “re-balancing” of their contract on the grounds that the airport would open as a loss-making concern due to the continuing competition with San Javier, claiming 160 million euros from the Murcia government.

This time, though, there was no financial rescue, and after the government failed in a bid to gain entrance to the terminal accompanied by the Guardia Civil, the management contract was rescinded. Eventually the government’s guarantee on the bank loan was executed, since when the regional government has been paying interest on the outstanding capital (reported by opposition parties to amount to 20,000 euros per day).

The dispute over who was to blame for the new airport not opening on time has since appeared never-ending, and in the last eight years Sacyr, the leading member of Aeromur, has brought no fewer than 28 legal actions against the government – all to no avail.

Meanwhile, by now it was becoming clear that the continuation of operations at San Javier would make Corvera unviable for the foreseeable future, but Aena refused to contemplate closing the former without compensation, claiming 90 million euros after the investments made to enlarge the airport on the shore of the Mar Menor. Stalemate ensued while the government endured years of legal argument before establishing that it was within its rights to put a new management out to tender, and there was finally light at the end of the tunnel when one of those bidding for the 25-year management was Aena.

Initially three bids were registered, but after those of the French group Edeis and the Argentine holding company Corporación América fell by the wayside it came as no surprise when the government of Murcia deemed the Aena bid acceptable in December 2017. Since then progress towards the transfer of flights to Corvera from San Javier has been rapid and unrelenting, and with Aena employees at San Javier guaranteed the right to move to the new airport, along with most of the 450 people working for ancillary service companies, the move was completed during Monday night and Tuesday morning before the inaugural flight touched down at 10.05.

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