ARCHIVED - More flights diverted to Corvera airport as fog disrupts services at Alicante-Elche

Four extra flights and Corvera on Sunday and more on Monday morning

The numbers of flights and passengers at the Region of Murcia International Airport in Corvera in January were boosted artificially by over 200 services being re-directed from the neighbouring airport of Alicante-Elche, firstly because of a fire in the terminal building in Alicante and then as a safety precaution during the gale-force winds and torrential rain of Storm Gloria, and on Sunday at least another four flights were re-routed to Corvera due to thick fog during the morning in the southern Costa Blanca.

During the morning Aena announced that at least 27 flights had been diverted, 13 at Alicante-Elche, 9 at Málaga and 5 at Valencia, and of those at Alicante four landings and take-offs were re-scheduled in the Region of Murcia. Similarly, on Monday morning another couple of flights had to be re-directed from Alicante-Elche for the same reason and as a result, for example, a Lauda Motion flight from Düsseldorf appeared on the arrival board at Corvera as it altered its flight path during the morning.

Not long afterwards a Ryanair flight from Birmingham, scheduled to land at Alicante-Elche, also touched down on the tarmac in Corvera.

On this occasion it is unlikely that there will be a significant effect on passenger numbers during the month at Corvera, though: in January the disruption at Alicante-Elche resulted in a misleading 63 per cent rise in the number of people passing through the terminal building in comparison with the combined total for January 2019 at the airports of Murcia-San Javier and Corvera: it should be remembered that it was on 15^th January last year that the new airport finally welcomed its first passenger flights, with the facility on the shore of the Mar Menor closing down to make way for it.

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