ARCHIVED - Passenger numbers at Alicante-Elche airport 94 per cent lower than pre-covid pandemic
Traffic at the Costa Blanca airport was 94 per cent lower than in March 2019
The almost total cancellation of international travel in Europe during the winter continued to have a devastating effect on Alicante-Elche airport in March, when passenger numbers remained extremely low as the number of flights during the 31 days was just 931.
On board those departures and arrivals were 61,598 passengers, according to the figures made public by Aena, and while this figure is almost double the total for February it remains extremely low. Last March, despite Spain declaring its first national state of emergency in response to the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic in the middle of the month, there were still well over 400,000 passengers passing through the terminal building, while 2019 brought a total of marginally under a million in the third month of the year.
In other words, the number has dropped by 93.8 per cent since March 2019, and with no international airlines resuming anything resembling normal service as yet it seems unreasonable to expect that the airport will become a hive of activity again at least until the summer.
Neither is Alicante-Elche the only airport suffering, of course. In Spain as a whole, Aena reports that the number of passengers arriving and departing on both international and domestic flights during the first quarter of 2021 reached 8.24 million, representing a decrease of 80.4 per cent from last year and 84.4 per cent from the year before.
However, Alicante depends more than most on tourist flights to and from the UK and northern Europe, and in consequence it has lost even more traffic than many other airports. In recent years the Costa Blanca airport has consistently been the fifth or sixth busiest in the whole of Spain, but so far in 2021 it occupies 11th position, below Manises airport in Valencia.
In addition, while there are hopes that the acceleration in vaccine programs may lead to a resumption of international tourism during the summer, the requirements for “health passports” or equivalent documentation are still not clear yet, and airlines are understandably reluctant to commit to full scheduling.