Planning your escape to the sunny Costa del Sol in low season? Here you find Malaga airport news for February 2026 and further useful information regarding scheduled flights for the coming season.
Flights Malaga – Tetouan with Royal Air Maroc
Royal Air Maroc is Morroccos largest airline with routes for more than 80 countries across the world.
The airline has taken a strategic step to boost tourism in the north of the country with the opening of a new air base at Tetouan-Sania Ramel Airport.
Starting March 27, this new base will offer direct flights to key European cities. Among the featured destinations are three Spanish cities: Madrid, Barcelona, and Malaga, as well as routes to Paris, Brussels, and London-Gatwick.
Tickets are now available for purchase through the official Royal Air Maroc website and authorized travel agencies.
Flights Malaga – Montpellier with Transavia
Transavia France is the low-cost airline of the Air France-KLM group. The company is strengthening its network to Andalusia with a new connection linking the Costa del Sol with the south of France during the summer of 2026. It is inaugurating, for the first time, a direct route between Malaga and Montpellier.
The connection will operate during the peak summer season, between July 17 and September 9. Flights will depart weekly every Sunday. The cheapest tickets start at €37 each way and are already available for purchase on their official website.
Ryanair remains the leading low-cost airline to Malaga
The Irish low-cost carrier has held the number one position on the Costa del Sol for 15 years. In 2025, it transported 8.3 million passengers on nearly 50,000 flights. This translates to a 31% market share in terms of passengers and 25.9% in terms of flights.
The airline now flys to 83 airports from Malaga and have added 9 new routes to Pardubice, Ostrava, Brno (Czech Republic); Bratislava (Slovakia); Lübeck, Münster (Germany); Stockholm Västerås (Sweden); Teesside (England); and Warsaw (Poland).
Gulf Air flights to Malaga
The Bahraini flag carrier has programmed the return of its seasonal services to Malaga. Gulf Air previously operated seasonal flights to Málaga during the 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024 summer seasons.
The Bahraini airline will reconnect with the Costa del Sol starting on June 17 and until September 25, 2026.
The route will operate with two weekly frequencies from the airline’s hub at Bahrain International Airport (BIA).
Jet2.com flights to Malaga
Jet2.com has unveiled its plans for summer 2026, announcing a significant increase in its operations in Andalusia.
The increase compared to the previous summer will be more than 47,000 seats, an 11% rise. Among the new additions is the direct route to London Gatwick, with four weekly flights, bringing the total number of connections to the UK to 12 and the number of weekly flights to 79 during peak season.
Update on the new passport control system at Malaga Airport
We continue to receive numerous user comments, as well as press updates about the new passport control system at Malaga Airport.
The situation is still far from normal. If you want to travel with maximum peace of mind, you might find our related article and this section below useful.
Numerous complaints about the new European passport control system
Are you planning to travel through Malaga Airport in the coming weeks? Then this section is likely to be of most interest to you!
As we explained in our article New passport control system at Malaga airport, the Costa del Sol irport implemented the new EU Entry/Exit System (EES) in October 2025.
This system, which replaces manual passport stamping with a digital and biometric registration (fingerprints and photo), aims to make checks safer and faster in the future.
But it is currently causing queues, delays, and a sense of insecurity among passengers at Malaga Airport. Several passengers missed their flights after waiting in line for more than two hours.
According to police unions, Malaga has a capacity of around 450 check-ins per hour. Compared to an average arrival volume of 1,200 passengers. Poor signage exacerbates the bottlenecks, even sending resident card holders to the slowest lanes.
Airlines operating on the Costa del Sol have begun advising non-Schengen travellers to arrive at least three hours before departure.
British residents with TIE should not use the new EES
We have received numerous inquiries from passengers who didn’t know which direction to take. And it was extremely difficult to find any information from an official source.
Finally, the Spanish Interior Ministry has confirmed that British residents holding a TIE card must not use the new Entry Exit System queues or automatic gates when entering or leaving the country.
In case you’re wondering what this new abbreviation means: If you are British, live in Spain and hold a TIE residence card (Withdrawal Agreement or another long-stay route), you are EES-exempt.
Thus, you can just join the EU / residents queue, show your passport and your TIE together, like any other legal resident. The national police at the airport have already received this instruction. However, if you speak Spanish, saying “Soy residente con TIE, no debo usar EES” can go a long way at the hectic passport control and especially at peak times.
According to Spain’s Ministry of the Interior, until April 10, 2026, the automated checks will run alongside the traditional passport stamping system for several months. Travellers should anticipate longer queues, especially during peak times.
Valuable tips
Until biometric kiosks are working reliably and staff are fully trained, several tips have emerged that we’d like to share with you.
- Travel with only hand luggage to expedite your journey through security to your gate.
- Allow more time for connections between domestic and international flights to Schengen.
- Malaga-Costa del Sol Airport has launched Aena’s chatbot service, called Oli. It speaks eight languages and is available on WhatsApp. You can download it via a QR code, on aena.es, in the Aena app, and at the main entrance at the airport.
It provides real-time information on both flights and services available at the airport, also allowing the user to be redirected to AenaMaps to guide their passage through the facilities.
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