The political and business front in favor of expanding the capacity of the Alicante-Elche airport by adding a second runway has received like a jug of cold water the parliamentary response in which the central government denies that this possibility will be carried out in the short and medium term. .
This morning, the president of the Generalitat Valenciana, Carlos Mazón, was at the forefront of the reaction against this refusal: “we are not going to allow the Government of Spain to lead us to a tourist collapse because it could also mean a social and economic collapse. a sector that is fundamental for our land,” he stated.
Mazón has criticized that “the Central Government is not even considering the study for the second runway of this airport” and has regretted “that it is playing with the economy, employment and the projection of the Community.”
The head of the Consell has assured that the Generalitat “will put up a fight against this new arrogance of the central government because our land, the province of Alicante and a tourism sector that is fundamental for the future of the Valencian Community deserve it.”
Mazón considers that “we have a tourist projection that means benefits, income or social cohesion for our Community.” For this reason, the president has stressed that “we are going to put a project on the table because the data supports us” and has stated that “we will remain firm in our demand because the second track is key to continue growing”, and has put as For example, Malaga airport, which does have a second runway.
Along the same lines, the president of the Alicante Chamber of Commerce, Carlos Baño, states in a statement that “with the new traffic forecasts and the upward trend, the airport’s growth capacity would be exceeded in 2026 with nearly 20 million passengers.”
The president of the Chamber has called for “the urgent need for this infrastructure so that this arbitrary decision does not have a negative impact on the GDP of our province, putting thousands of jobs at risk each year” and has described the decision of the Central Government as “ political punishment to the province of Alicante since it is not in line with the socioeconomic reality of our regions and the airport.”
Baño denies the study in which the Executive argues its decision by indicating that “in the short and medium term it is not necessary to have a second runway” arguing that “since October 2023 the airport is growing at a greater rate than expected. The data for 2024 confirm this trend.” According to the Alicante business leader, “with these forecasts and this trend, the growth capacity would be exceeded in 2026 with close to 20 million passengers.”
It so happens that, today, the general director of Aena airports, Elena Mayoral, has assured that the airport recovery in Spain is being higher than that at the European and international level, during the update of the airport manager’s Strategic Plan Spanish 2022-2026 held this Thursday in Madrid.
“The summer season with the currently planned slot offering, 7% above that of 2023, will allow us to recover the figures of 2019 in all Spanish airports,” Mayoral assured.
The data will be especially positive at tourist airports and hubs. Thus in the Canary Islands, for example, the expected growth will be 7.4% compared to 2019, in the Balearic Islands it will be above 6% and in eminently tourist airports such as Alicante, Seville, Valencia or Malaga it will be above 10%. and even above.
Mayoral assured that Aena has “sufficient capacity” to guarantee the expected increase in traffic in the coming years. According to the update of the strategic plan advanced today, the airport manager plans to serve one million traffic users per day in all the airports it operates around the world in 2026.
