ARCHIVED - Political criticism about lack of public transport from Corvera airport

Podemos joins the voices of disgruntled international visitors who have no option but to take a taxi

This summer has been complicated to say the least for anyone attempting to travel to Spain either for personal or tourism purposes, the restrictions on travel and the high cost of covid tests being just one of the many areas of difficulty which must be navigated by anyone attempting to reach their holiday destination, to visit family or to spend time in their own privately owned property.

Those travelling to Murcia have faced the added dilemma that the number of routes flying into the regional airport at Corvera is limited due to the covid pandemic and only some of the routes normally operational during the peak summer months are even flying into Alicante airport.

In pre-pandemic times flights between Murcia and the UK normally accounted for the vast majority of all passengers, but this July there were just 13,521 passengers on Corvera-UK flights, making up under 32 per cent of the total and still 88 per cent fewer than in July 2019 when the number of people on Corvera-UK flights reached 109,147 and together with a further 11,325 flying between the Costa Cálida and Ireland they contributed 83 per cent of all traffic.

In July a total of 42,381 passengers passed through the terminal building, and although this represents almost three times the number reported the month before, is still 70 per cent lower than two years ago, however, the level of traffic is slowly recovering after months during which Corvera reported as many as 98 per cent of passengers having been lost to the pandemic.

Although the lack of flights is a major issue for travellers, those who do reach the region have also been complaining that the price of hire cars this summer has been exorbitant and complaints on social media about the price of car hire vehicles and availability have been rife during the last two months.

Which has led to many questions about how to reach their final destination via public transport…..and so to another problem.

Since the airport at Corvera replaced the former installation in San Javier as the regional airport for the Murcia region, the regional government has subsidised a bus service, enabling passengers landing at the airport to travel directly to the coast and the golf resorts of the region, where many of them own property homes, principally due to the dissatisfaction of those visiting the Mar Menor and the golf resorts, which were much closer to San Javier than to Corvera.

As the Murcia region lacks the type of accommodation normally selected by tour operators, most of the international tourists arriving via Corvera airport from the UK, traditionally the largest source of foreign visitors for the Murcia region, are property owners who have holiday apartments on golf resorts or along the coast or are related in some way to that private property ownership, ie are renting out accommodation or visiting family or friends, and most of the resorts were literally built out in the middle of a field.

Hence the provision of a subsidised bus service to assist travellers not hiring cars, to reach their destinations.

The service stopped when the lockdowns began, but has not resumed and as there are no trains from the airport, travellers are left with just the one option; a taxi, which can be very expensive, given that the airport itself is built in the middle of field and is “near to nowhere”.

This week the regional representative of the Podemos party in the Asamblea Regional, Rafael Esteban, raised the topic, criticising the lack of public transport options for those passengers who do arrive at Corvera airport.

Rafael Esteban, said that the situation was "implausible", and denounced the "unfortunate image offered by our tourism", causing "surprise and many complaints from tourists who arrive at an airport with no connection to the main tourist centers."

It is an open secret that this year the regional tourism board has put all of its efforts into the domestic tourism market and has almost completely ignored the needs of non-Spanish speaking foreign visitors, focusing on promoting the region in the cities of Spain, due to the obvious difficulties caused by Covid.

However, the rapid deterioration of the Mar Menor during August is already affecting hotel reservations for the early weeks of autumn, normally a time when Spanish retirees in particular spend a few weeks by the coast, and suddenly the lack of interest in promoting to foreign visitors, who spend millions in the region every year, particularly out of the peak holiday periods, seems less of a strategy and more of a major oversight.

The Podemos deputy accused the regional government of " abandoning a sector seriously hit by the pandemic to its fate”, and also criticised that “the ecocide of the Mar Menor and the lack of investment into basic infrastructures such as buses, make many people decide to spend their vacations in other destinations ".

He went on to accuse the regional Minister for Tourism, Marcos Ortuño of "being more focused on other things", than on "solving the problems of one of the most important sectors for the economy of the Region of Murcia " and attacked the regional Minister of Development and Infrastructure, Jose Ramón Díez de Revenga, who "seems to have not yet found out that his job is precisely to solve problems like this.”

He concluded by saying that the “tourist image of the Region of Murcia and the Costa Cálida iss crushed.”

"The tourist who arrives in the Region is faced with the lack of a public transport network that facilitates mobility throughout the territory, which is based on intermodality and offers diversified alternatives for the different levels of income of the visitors" he concluded.

Sadly, due to the complete absence of any public transport services at the regional airport, and after a stressful summer of responding to emails from outraged readers demanding an investigation into why car hir prices are so high and there are no bus services from the airport, it’s difficult to disagree with the comments made.