Shopping area in Terminal 3 at Malaga airport

Andalucia is the second Spanish region with the largest number of airports, after the Canary Islands, due to the presence of facilities in Malaga, Seville, Almeria, Cordoba, Granada and Jerez and a heliport in Algeciras.

Andalucian airports are modern, with international direct connections and a promising future because they are designed by and for tourism. That facet and the weight of the Costa del Sol have caused that Malaga airport is by far the largest air entry to Andalusia to the point that it accounts for 60% of total passengers and offers over a hundred destinations.

The current airports “have nothing to do” with those of three decades ago. Everything has changed, from infrastructure to the type of carrier, to security measures or the shopping area.

In 1982 Malaga airport has a small terminal with four counters and charter flights to England and Scandinavia, while direct flights were only domestic and very few.

Today, charter flights have virtually disappeared and what predominates is the proliferation of low cost airlines, which have gradually gained market share with almost ridiculous rates and connecting the Andalusian airports with cities across Europe.

Especially significant has been the case with Ryanair in Malaga. In 2008 its presence at the Costa del Sol airport was minimal. A year later, its eccentric president, Michael O’Leary, dressed as Santa Claus announced the creation of a base at the airport and two years later, Ryanair is the absolute leader at Malaga airport with nearly three million passengers, one million more than the second largest airline, Easyjet, also low cost.

This change results in the fact that 40% of travelers passing through Malaga airport are flying from or to United Kingdom and it is easier and cheaper to fly from Costa del Sol to anywhere in Europe than to another Spanish province. It is less expensive to travel to Haugesund (Norway) than to Barcelona.

The second major change experienced by the Andalusian airports in these three decades has been regarding to their infrastructure. All facilities have received a significant investment and belong today to one of the most modern transport networks in Europe.

In 1991 was inaugurated Terminal 2 at Malaga Airport, named Pablo Ruiz Picasso. It has been instrumental in the growth of the facility, tourism and, therefore, of the provincial economy and Andalusia. However, the technicians and the airport director said at the time it was going to be small in 20 years and eventually became too small in eight.

The lack of space led to the development of the Plan Málaga, which brings the greatest transformation in the historyof the city´s airport. It has been created a new terminal that doubles its capacity to serve 9,000 passengers per hour. And in February is expected to open a second runway that will consolidate the airport in the top four in Spain and among the largest in Europe with an annual capacity of 30 million passengers.

The company has scheduled eleven connections for the 2012 summer season which begins in March, with a total capacity of 871,992 seats. This figure represents an increase of 85,000 more seats than the same period last year, as stated by the airline Vueling.

Thus, travellers can fly with this company from the Costa del Sol to Toulouse (France), Rome (Italy), Amsterdam (Netherlands) and Paris (France), Barcelona, Bilbao, Tenerife, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and Santiago. In addition, through connecting flights via Barcelona, from Malaga airport you can travel to the Norwegian fjords, Sweden and the Greek islands Mykonos, Santorini or Crete.

Malaga Airport Terminal 3 Departures

Nearly 13 million passengers have passed through these facilities throughout 2011, which implies a return to the figures recorded in 2006 before the economic downturn, although it has not yet reached the maximum of 13.5 million passengers recorded in 2007.

Thus, Malaga continues as the fourth busiest airport in passengers and operations in Spain, behind Madrid, Barcelona and Palma de Mallorca.

According to data provided by Spanish Airports and Air Navigation (Aena), most of the passengers at Malaga airport between January and December (12,762,465 specifically) traveled on commercial flights. Of these, 2,665,348 persons flew between Spanish cities, representing an increase of 4.6% over the same period last year. The remaining 10,097,117 people traveled on international flights, a 6.9% increase.

Cancelled flights at Madrid-Barajas airport

A total of nine flights departing from or arriving at Andalusian airports will be canceled on Wednesday January 11, due to the strike by the pilots of the company Iberia.

Thus, canceled flights, in particular, will be the flights Madrid-Seville at 3:45 pm, Seville-Madrid at 5:35 pm, Jerez-Madrid at 1:40 pm, Madrid-Jerez at 11:50 am, Jerez-Madrid at 7.00 am, Madrid-Jerez at 7.50 am, Malaga-Madrid at 5:45 pm, Granada-Madrid at 5:45 pm and the flight Madrid-Granada at 4:00 pm.

Affected international connections are the long-haul flights connecting Madrid-Barajas to Miami, Bogota, Lima, Sao Paulo, Buenos Aires and Mexico. Also affected are flights to Lisbon, London, Brussels, Amsterdam, Paris, Zurich, Geneva, Frankfurt, Milan, Venice, Tel Aviv, Moscow, Zurich, Rome and Casablanca.

This strike today adds to the one last Monday, January 9 and the two-day strike on December 18 and 29, 2011.

Iberia has eased rates to facilitate the exchange or refund to customers affected by these cancellations and is looking for alternative flights with Iberia or with other companies with which it has agreements.

Customers who have purchased their tickets through ‘www.iberia.com’ will receive a message about the incident that might have occurred in their flight and a travel alternative, where feasible, to be agreed in the website.

They may also call the phone number Iberia has established to address this issue, the 902 100 988 in Spain, to be offered alternatives. If you do not want to fly, the reimbursement will be processed through the same website.

Meanwhile those who have booked through a travel agent should contact with this in order to manage changes or refunds of their tickets and to expedite the paperwork.

Iberia will keep their customers informed at all times through its website, Serviberia and other call centers of Iberia worldwide, Iberia profiles on Facebook and Twitter, all points of customer service in more than 100 airports where operates Iberia, and travel agencies.

From June 26 to July 31, flights to Berlin and Hamburg take off from Malaga airport six times a week. Flights to Cologne will increase between July 13 and August 28 to total of four weekly conditions. It will also be possible to fly during this time up to eight times a week to the city of Düsseldorf. Every Thursday, there will be an additional flight from Malaga to Munich, between August 9 and September 6, increasing the number of weekly flights to this city to a total of four.