When the Murcia regional airport at San Javier closed its doors to be replaced by the new, purpose-built international airport at Corvera, many passengers were utterly disappointed by the move, some of whom vowed never to use Corvera, a situation which seems to be reflected in actual passenger figures, according to the latest data.
In 2018, the last year of full operations at San Javier, 1,273,774 passengers passed through the airport. In 2022, adjusting figures for the Covid pandemic, Corvera handled 838,940 passengers, a loss of 34%.
In 2019, the last year before the pandemic, and the first year in which Corvera replaced San Javier, 1,090,712 passengers flew from Murcia, a decline of 14%, whilst Alicante-Elche Airport increased by 7.6%.
The figures are not seemingly improving. In January of this year, when normality has almost completely returned, and Alicante-Elche Airport had their best January in history, with 795,148 passengers, which means exceeding by 1.3% the data for the same month of 2019, Corvera served just 22,171 passengers. In January 2018, the last January San Javier was active 45,200 passengers used the Murcia terminal, thus representing a drop of 51% when we compare Corvera this year.
Murcia was always the poor relation compared to Alicante, with the El Altet terminal historically handling around ten times more passengers, but with the most recent data, that figure has now increased to 15 times more.
However, we should be under no illusions. Passenger air traffic will never return to San Javier, so from our point of view we can either accept that the Murcia Regional Airport is a viable option for our travel choices, and subsequently much quieter than Alicante, or we participate in the growth of the Costa Blanca’s favourite international terminal, Alicante-Elche Miguel Hernandez Airport.
