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Corvera Airport's long haul recovery: Five more years to reach pre-pandemic levels
The Region of Murcia International Airport is still well behind the passenger numbers seen at the old San Javier airport
Despite a strong start to 2025, with a 12% increase in passenger traffic compared to January 2024, Corvera, officially called the Region of Murcia International Airport, has failed to live up to the high expectations set when it first opened its doors back in 2019.
Although it has always been light years away from the passenger traffic that its counterpart in San Javier had, the pandemic dealt it a critical blow from which it still has three years to recover.
That’s according to Spain’s airport management company Aena, which doesn’t expect the Costa Calida aerodrome to regain its pre-corona oomph until at least 2027.
In Corvera’s defence, passenger traffic did grow in 2024, but only by 3.4%, which is a far cry from the more optimistic projections. The bulk of passengers travelling through Murcia airport are still international, but this market only increased by a tiny 0.2% last year. Domestic passengers, on the other hand, surged by 35.9%.
In total, 787,595 people used Corvera Airport in 2024, compared to the 1,090,954 passengers welcomed in pre-pandemic 2019.
That’s a difference of 16.8%, a substantial gap that Aena doesn’t believe will be bridged for years.
The gap is even greater if we take into account the metrics of San Javier airport, which closed 2018 with 1,273,424 passengers using the airport's facilities, representing a year-on-year increase at the time of 6.4%.
In other words, the current figures would have to be improved by 28.8% just to match the numbers that the San Javier terminal achieved before its closure.
Naturally, if the passenger numbers aren’t up to scratch, Corvera isn’t making as much money as it should either. It turns out that revenue from Murcia airport has decreased in the last year, bringing in a turnover of 14.8 million euros during 2024, down from 15 million in 2023.
It is worth noting that it was the summer months, the most important for any aerodrome, that recorded the worst performance: they pulled in just 4.6 million compared to 5.3 million in 2023.
Image: Archive
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