Alicante-Elche Miguel Hernández Airport, fifth in the Aena network and fourth in the Peninsula by volume of passengers, is set to close 2022 with more passengers than even they anticipated, following the closure of air traffic during the height of the pandemic.
However, the Elche terminal is recovering slower than other airports in the network, given that 85% of its traffic is provided by international passengers and, in this group, the United Kingdom continues to be the main market despite Brexit and the particular conditions that it continues to impose on travel, and the worsened cost of living crisis there as a result.
Despite the problems with the important British market, Alicante is recovering faster than even Aena itself expected, and by the end of 2022 it will have recovered close to 90% of its maximum traffic peak, which was 15 million people.
As soon as the ‘normal’ figures of flights and passengers are maintained in December, with the pull of the Christmas holidays, it looks like Alicante-Elche Airport will close the year reaching 13 million passengers, which represents more than 87% of total traffic in 2019, the record year before the pandemic hit. It does not seem like an unattainable goal, given that in November, the terminal saw more than 900,000 people pass through its facilities.
The airport director herself, Laura Navarro, set 2022 or 2023 as the horizon to return to those 15 million passengers, but in reality, Aena’s five-year plan for the period 2022-2026 expected to reach only 10 million passengers this year, and it anticipated 2026 as the return to 15 million. However, the 10 million passengers had already been reached in September of this year, and the last quarter will round off the figures with a volume of users 30% higher than expected by the plan.
This year, some important milestones have also been marked that have boosted the recovery beyond the fact that the global figure is somewhat lower than that of other airports that are not so dependent on the United Kingdom. For example, in April the Alicante-Elche airport did close the ‘covid gap’ with 1.2 million passengers and 90% of the traffic in the same month of 2019, thanks to the boost of Easter. That month, Alicante regained fourth position in the Aena network on the Peninsula, only behind Madrid, Barcelona and Malaga. In parallel, the offer of seats for the summer season (March-October) was announced, which was 2.2% higher than that of the same pre-pandemic period.
On the August bridge, the Alicante terminal operated 1,254 flights, barely 8% less than in the same period of the year of the records. At the end of the month, Norwegian Airlines announced that it was recovering its base in Alicante with a view to 2023, when it will have three planes based in Alicante-Elche (before the pandemic there were four), which means more routes to and from the province. The month of August, like that of April, closed with the recovery of 90% of pre-pandemic traffic, above the accumulated annual figure: 1.5 million passengers, of which a third were British.
Despite the reduction, British nationals continue to be the main users of the Costa Blanca airport, ahead of Spanish nationals, which is significant data since national tourism has gained importance for the terminal. In fact, the domestic traveller has increased by 13.3% up to November compared to the same period in 2019, with 1.8 million registered passengers. Meanwhile, the international market is evolving positively, although more slowly, and 84% of traffic has recovered with 10.53 million accumulated passengers. In that final push to return to 2019, two British airlines, Ryanair and Jet2, will play a crucial role. The first announces more routes for 2023, while the second has already ‘brushed’ back to normal this summer.
