The airlines that operate at the Alicante-Elche-Miguel Hernández airport will offer throughout the summer season - from April 1 to mid-October, in tourist terms - 13% more seats than the previous year. The information was announced by the director of the Alicante airport, Laura Navarro, during the inauguration of easyJet's fourth operational base in Spain, which as of today has three aircraft and nearly a hundred employees based there.
For Navarro, 2024 is the year of consolidation in a growth that is leading the Alicante airport to break records month after month and exceed 15 million travelers in 2023. This season, 76,000 operations are expected - 12.5% more than the previous year - on the airport's only runway. This constant increase has been mentioned by business leaders (Fede Fuster, from Hosbec; Esther Gilabert, from CEV and Jesualdo Ros, from Provia) who have participated in a brief colloquium to demand the urgent need for a second runway and the much-demanded railway connection.
They have done so in the presence of the Government delegate, Pilar Bernabé, who has assumed that the train will arrive at the airport no later than 2030, given that this is the maximum period to qualify for European financing via Next Generation funds, and of the president of the Generalitat, Carlos Mazón, who has announced the presentation at the end of April or the beginning of May of a study carried out by the Valencian Chambers of Commerce that justifies the need for a second runway in Alicante-Elche-Miguel Hernández and the expansion of Valencia -Manises.
The 3 Airbus A320 family aircraft that easyJet establishes in Alicante will allow the airline to go from 12 to 22 routes between the Costa Blanca and as many international destinations. With this, the company offers 1.5 million seats in Alicante this summer season, an increase of approximately 10% compared to 2023.
As explained by Javier Gándara, general director of easyJet in southern Europe, the fact of having a base in Alicante allows the British firm to diversify its offer, based above all on connections with the United Kingdom. In fact, six of the new routes connect with other points in Europe: Zurich, Nantes and Prague, which already operate twice a week; Lille, Lyon and Nice, which will do so from the beginning of May with the same frequency. The other four are Birmingham, Southampton, Newcastle and Belfast.
For Mazón, the impact and need study that the Chambers will soon present will show that both the second Alicante-Elche runway and the Valencia-Manises expansion cannot wait "not one more minute out of necessity, not out of demand but out of conviction, due to the capacity for growth". According to the Valencian president, this study will demonstrate "not only the possibilities we have of launching these projects, but also the possibilities that we lose and have already lost by not having done so."
