It was his first institutional visit to the province of Alicante and, as expected, in line with the announcement made on Thursday by the management of Aena, in a speech made to the Alicante Forum on Friday, the Minister of Transport and Sustainable Mobility, Óscar Puente, confirmed that there would be major investment and improvements to the infrastructure at Alicante Airport.

He said that those improvements will allow the provincial airport to grow to 26 million passengers. However, he stressed that, for the moment, the construction of a second runway is not planned.

In stating that there is no need for a second runway at Alicante airport, the minister referred to statements made by Javier Gándara, whose company, EasyJet, has just established a new base at the airport.

The minister pointed out that there are many international airports with single runways that move up to 33 million passengers every year, while, currently Alicante airport processes about 16 million, adding that “the growth possibilities are not only associated with the number of runways.”

“That does not mean that Aena does not want to undertake an expansion, in fact, on Thursday an expansion of the Alicante and Valencia passenger terminals was announced with an investment of 1,000 million,” he said, “an expansion that will enable the airport to receive up to 26 million passengers.”

“What is going to be done in Alicante is to build more terminal, create more passenger boarding bridges, and increase the capacity of hourly operations,” he insisted. “I have no reason not to help this region if it is necessary,” he said.