Malaga Airport to end 2014 with a record-breaking 13.5 Million Air Passengers

The final figures are not in yet, but when they have been collected and analysed in January 2015, Malaga Airport is likely to have broken all previous records with regard to passenger numbers. More than 13.5 million air passengers will have used Malaga Airport by the end of New Year's Eve.

By November the airport had already exceeded passenger numbers recorded for the whole of 2013, showing clearly that both the airport and the province were well on the path of recovery. During 2014 Malaga Airport introduced many new flight routes, as well as consolidating existing ones. The airport's management reached mutually beneficial agreements with carries and companies who view Malaga Airport as in integral part of their world-wide expansion plans.

Some 50 airlines operate out of Malaga Airport, offering direct flights to 85 holiday destinations during winter and considerably more than that in summer. For people who are considering buying a holiday home or a permanent residence at the Costa del Sol the airport is key to turning their dreams into reality. Great flight connections between Malaga City and the rest of Europe mean homeowners living in Britain, Germany, France of Scandinavia can make the most of their holiday home in Marbella, Benehavis, Fuengirola or Estepona.

 "We won’t have the full data until after the end of this month, but I am confident that the year will end with very good results, looking at what has happened so far," said Salvador Merino, Malaga Airport's manager, who analysed the airport's period of recovery.

"There have been increased figures for every month and something that is very important: up until November, there was the highest traffic figure since the end of 2007, with 13,064,557 passengers. That is 6.4 per cent more than in the same period of 2013. So we are expecting to end the year with more than thirteen and a half million passengers, although we will have to wait for the official figures,”  Merino explained.

He added optimistically: "These figures, which put the airport at levels similar to those before the crisis and very close to a historical record, have been sustained by the positive evolution in the international and the domestic markets."

Looking ahead

The coming year may even exceed 2014's spectacular result.  "I hope we will continue along this path to growth next year. It will be a year which is marked by the consolidation and expanding of existing routes, but always through operations which are guaranteed to be successful. We only take steps which will strengthen the airport on the international stage,” Merino said.

Residential tourism is largely responsible for the increase in passenger numbers, but new markets have also been opened up. Some 85% of all passengers arriving or departing at Malaga Airport are foreign travellers.

"This is primarily an international airport, even though the Spanish routes have done well. We are noticing the first signs of recovery in Spanish demand, despite the competition from the AVE high speed train. For the first time in the past two years Spanish tourism has picked up in terms of air travel,” Merino explained.

At the time the manager made these statements, he was still awaiting the arrival of the year end figures and a more detailed breakdown of how the principle source markets for tourism to the Costa del Sol had performed; however, Merino stated that the 2014 result was achieved due to a good performance across the board, not just through new routes or the introduction of a new airline.

New Attractions

While residential tourists flocked to their holiday homes in Marbella this summer, conventional tourists declared Malaga City as one of Europe's hottest cultural destinations in Europe and the perfect place for a short city break.

They came in their thousands to visit the city's cultural attractions, in particular the Picasso Museum and the Carmen Thyssen Museum. 2015 sees the inauguration of several new tourist attractions, including the much-talked-about Pompidou Centre and the National Museum of Russian Art in St. Petersburg, as well as the eagerly anticipated reopening of the Museum of Malaga, which is scheduled to open at the end of 2015 at the Palacio de la Aduana.

Malaga Airport will be getting even busier, when these cultural attractions open their doors!