Four years of failure at Corvera airport
“It’s in the middle of nowhere,” observes one of the passengers. The facility is a veritable island: September 15, 2022 was the last time a scheduled bus service was available at the airfield and no more are expected until summer
An aircraft lands at one of the seven least used airports in Spain. The small group of passengers, arriving from the United Kingdom, walk through the terminal, they will be the only ones to do so for the next few hours, as there are only five flights scheduled throughout the whole day.
“It’s very nice and clean, but it’s empty, even for winter,” says one of the passengers, with a chuckle.
Only 838,940 people travelled through Corvera airport last year, in comparison to the 13,202,880 that chose to use Alicante, and four years after it was opened by King Felipe in 2019 the passenger numbers are still far short of those processed by it’s predecessor at San Javier.
This cripplingly expensive aviation saga has been an embarrassing flop for the Murcian government. It really is such a pity that millions of euros of public money have been squandered by self-seeking politicians on little more than a whim, that we have gone from a profitable and award winning airport at San Javier to one that continues to eat up public funds.
Public transport is non-existent with the last service ending in September 2022 and there is still being no guarantee of it returning in the summer.
“If this airport had public transport it would be more successful. We have to rent a car, it’s a problem, plus it’s in the middle of nowhere,” states another passenger, Paul.
For most of the travellers spoken to, this was their first flight to the Region, and they are unaware that their only mode of onward travel is either a taxi or a hire car.
One further disadvantage is the airport being in a military zone which means that flights, including commercial ones, cannot start until 7am and must stop by 10pm, so there are no night flights at Corvera airport. The same was the case with the already closed San Javier airport, although that did not prevent it from consistently exceeding one million passengers per year for eleven of the twelve years on record.
But far from admitting defeat the Institute of Tourism of the Region of Murcia is about to pump an additional 4 million euros into Corvera Airport to encourage new national and international routes in 2023.
In fact the airport is already offering cheap flights to the Canary Islands as well as trips to London-Luton and Manchester from May, and with the forecast of a strong industry improvement for the Murcia region, perhaps the poor performance of it’s airport might also be turned around.
