The Spanish airports are increasing passengers in April
Aena published data for the April operations and confirmed the good trend so far in 2014. Only in April, the Spanish airports gained passengers by 9.3% with regard to April 2013. Comparing figures between January and April, the Spanish airports increased passengers by 4.1% so far this year.
It is worth noting that Madrid increased passengers by 7.5% in April, experiencing an aggregate growth of 2.5%; Barcelona keeps the good numbers increasing by 10.8% in April (7.5% between January and April); Málaga met the expectations we had anticipated and grew by 14.4% in April (accumulating 9.5%); Alicante is also doing fine: it gained passengers by 9.6% in April, by 7.7% since January.
The Canary Islands confirmed the expectations too: Gran Canaria increased by 22.3% in April, Tenerife South by 10.3%, Lanzarote by 20.7% and Fuerteventura by 19.9%. The correspondent aggregate amounts for the period January-April in these airports are 11.3%, 5.6%, 16.1% and 13.1% respectively.
To this respect, LaInformacion.com informed on Monday that passengers from international destinations grew by 37.3% in the Canary Islands in April. This piece of news confirms the calculations we had made with our Customize Airport Statistics Tool
Palma de Mallorca increased passengers by 5.5% in April, although the aggregate amount so far in 2014 is -2.7% due to a poor winter season.
A separate note about Murcia to indicate they lost passengers again in April (-4.3%), accumulating -5.3% between January and April and hence feeding the debate on the Murcia-Corvera start of operations.
EasyJet ready to open routes in Spain
In line with these good figures, easyJet will follow the steps of Ryanair and Iberia, increasing the offer in the Spanish market. Hence, according to expansion.com Javier Gándara – director for easyJet in Spain and Portugal – said that “Spain is one of our main industries and we already had in mind a growth in 2015 but, considering the recently announced freezing of charges, we are seeing if we can do something more.
The airline’s expectations for 2014 are to increase clients by 3%. For 2015, the growths will be spread between capacity increases in already existing routes and other new routes to be started as well.
“We will connect all 18 Spanish cities where we operate with more European destinations”. However, Gándara declined to open the Madrid base again after closing it down in 2012. He also said they are not thinking of opening bases in other Spanish cities. “Improvements are starting to be noticed, but it is still early days”. He added that the easyJet decision has nothing to do with the incentives offered by the Ministry since January this year to boost the air traffic. “The best incentive is to have smaller airport charges” as for them this item means 25% of the overall costs, only beaten by fuel which represents 33%.
Photo: Easyjet takeoff in Madrid airport / Javier Pedreira
