ARCHIVED - 220,000 passengers at Alicante-Elche airport in May as international travel re-starts
Traffic at the Costa Blanca airport rose by over 6,000 per cent in May after the lockdown last year!
The almost total cancellation of international travel in Europe during the winter is now gradually being reversed at Alicante-Elche airport in El Altet, and the data published by Aena relating to passenger numbers in May show that activity at the terminal was starting to return strongly even before the introduction of more international flights during June.
On the face of it, the number of people passing through the terminal building at El Altet during the month was an incredible 6,099 per cent higher than in April 2020, but of course in May last year air travel – and indeed all travel - was practically non-existent due to the pandemic. In reality, the increase from 3,546 passengers to 219,839 is actually a relatively insignificant one, and the total last month is still equivalent to only 15.7 per cent of the 1.4 million in May 2019.
Nonetheless, there is no denying that the trend is an upward one. In April of this year there were only 1,542 landings and take-offs at Alicante airport while in May the figure rose to 2,346, and with flights resuming this month to and from more and more destinations further increases can be expected during June.
On the other hand, how significant those increases might be will depend to a large extent on the situation regarding visitors from the UK, and the latest news is far from positive as the British government continues to keep Spain on its “amber list” of foreign travel destinations.
In Spain as a whole, Aena reports that the number of passengers arriving and departing on both international and domestic flights during the first five months of 2021 reached 17.8 million, representing a decrease of 82.3 per cent from the year before last. The busiest airports so far this year have been, as ever, those of Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas (4.82 million passengers after a fall of 79.7 per cent since 2019) and Barcelona El Prat (down by 87.5 per cent to 2.46 million).