AirMalaga.com News from The Ultimate Independent Malaga Airport Guide

Luckily, for many car rentals at Malaga Airport, it is going to become one of the most important airports in Europe and many airlines are already expanding their routes to this destination in the Costa del Sol.

From June 2010 onwards Malaga airport will be the fifth base of operations in Spain of Ryanair.

The project will involve an increase of more than two million passengers per year and an investment of more than 170 million Euros, with four aircrafts in Malaga and 19 new routes.

This new base of operations will start running in June 2010 and will generate about 200 direct jobs with 360 flights a week, including domestic routes to destinations in northern Spain such as Santander, Santiago de Compostela, Valladolid and Zaragoza. With the new European flights Ryanair intensifies the connections with the northern and eastern countries and as well Italy and Paris.

The flights, with a frequency of two or three times per week have the following destinations: Aarhus (Denmark), Bratislava (Slovakia), Krakow and Wroclaw (Poland), Tampere (Finland), Oslo (Norway), Stockholm y Goteborg (Sweden), Eindhoven y Maastricht (Holland), Memmingen and Berlin (Germany), Pisa and Venice (Italy) and Paris (France).

In 2009, Ryanair opened only in Spain 188 new routes, of which 26 are based in Malaga airport.

This new base in Malaga will be the smallest in Spain, although it is estimated that in a few years it will be placed thirdly, after Alicante and Madrid.

This week, Ryanair will be cancelling flights that were purchased on websites other than their own for this summer all the way into next March. Their claim is that websites are illegally ’scraping’ content from their site and making it slow or unavailable for legitimate visitors to ryanair.com. The third-party sites they are targeting include eDreams and Opodo in France, Bravoflight in Switzerland, V-Tours in Germany, Tui in the UK, and Atrapalo in Spain. They also purport that these sites charge more than Ryanair’s rates and don’t adequately notify customers of flight changes. The fares will be credited back to customers on the same card used to purchase them, and the company will also notify the affected consumers by email.

Of course this has created a stir, and the European Commission is checking into whether this violates European consumers’ rights. It appears they’re agreeing in the case of those sites using Ryanair.com illegally, but yet to determine whether this affects travel agents operating in the same network.

On other fronts, Ryanair announced that it will open a number of new flight paths this fall, including one from Malaga to London (Stansted) starting October 28. This path will have a frequency of three flights a week on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. The option for booking these flights is already on the Ryanair site, and of course they will only show available if you choose a flight date after the opening date of that path.

A group of private investors are building a second airport in the Murcia region. Original plans to have a 1.5 million passenger capacity has been doubled, with planners hoping the initiative to implement a capacity of 3 million will be approved while the building works are in progress. The opening date has also been shifted; originally slotted for 2009, the wait for Spanish government approval has pushed it back to 2010, with works to begin as soon as possible this summer.

The Aeropuerto Internacional de Corvera is to be located near the town of Corvera, about 20 minutes’ drive from Murcia’s capital city. The development has some residents and golf course owners concerned about noise pollution, although it remains to be seen exactly where the airport footprint will lie and whether flight paths will indeed be over locals’ heads. The current Murcia airport at San Javier pulls around 2 million people a year into the region, so this new airport is expected to provide an alternative route for low-cost airlines.

Want to visit one of the beautiful nearby islands? You can do so free if you’re quick enough. Vueling is offering a limited number of free flights to visitors to a special section of their site, which requires entering a special code at precisely 9:30am (Spain time). They are giving away 20 free (2-passenger) prizes each weekday until April 30. Oh, you wanna know where to get the secret code? Well the link’s coming, but you have to know something first. The flights are only from Madrid, and only good for residents of Spain. So if you’re from the Malaga area, you would also have to find a quick-hop flight to Madrid or take the AVE. No problem? Then flip through the Madrid print edition of 20minutos (click on the "Edición completa" link), and look for the Vueling ad, something like the image on the right. There will be a special code listed, good for only that day. Visit the Vueling special page before 9:30 and be ready to enter your name, surname, email address and the special code as quick as possible. I tried it today, but my old fingers must be getting feeble! Even if you’re like me and don’t get in the first 20, you can take advantage of their 50€ offer (per person) for the same destinations.

The airline industry is shakin ‘n bakin lately. With American Airlines having so many flights grounded for inspections, fuel prices rocketing and not showing any mercy signals of slowing down, airlines going bankrupt is just the icing on the cake. Four other small airlines have filed for Chapter 11 in the last few weeks. Delta and Northwest didn’t let that stop them though; they came through bankruptcy protection a year ago, and although they’re still losing money, have decided to merge. The decision was made yesterday by both companies’ boards, although federal officials still have to approve it. This news clip talks about a few key points.

This union will make the world’s largest airline, beating out American Airlines for that title, and a combined workforce of 80,000…for now. Of course it’s not all roses – any merger means ‘restructuring’, or for the layman, cutting a lot of jobs and probably a number of other growing pains. Delta’s getting the upper hand here, since the new company will retain their name and chairman, although Northwest’s chairman will come on the new board as vice-chair.