Corvera airport

The passenger figures at San Javier are dropping every year and Alicante passenger figures rise accordingly. That said, St Javier is one of the worst airports I have ever used - and I have seen a few. The staff are all surly, there are no facilities and it is impossible to buy a coffe in the single, very over-priced retail unit after 10.00pm. The carriers are poor with limited destinations and mostly red-eye flights.

If this excuse of an airport is to close, why has a new runway  and commercial terminal been built at the cost of €60m and the car-parking contracts renewed? In 2011 Taboras (Minister of Public Works) signed a contract to close St. Javier by end of 2012 at the latest. 

St.Javier is a brilliant airport, Stress free and quiet. I've always found the staff to be fine. Who in their right mind would choose to fly into the bustle of Alicante when you can land at MJV and be through immigration and customs in 5 minutes.

Long may it remain open

I like St Javier airport.  When my car broke down a couple of years ago and we arrived at the airport after the gate had closed and the plane was boarding the staff rushed us through security and enabled us to get on the plane in time.  I found the staff unbelievably helpful.  The only real problem is the lack of flights into St Javier from regional airports which don't give you much choice of  flights.  We flew into Alicante this year (went from Cardiff) because the cost and flight times were substantially better.  If they had been the same or similar I would definately have gone to St Javier.

Woodbug

San Javier actually closes at 22.00 so no flights, no coffee, very sensible for local residents as it really is small regional easy to use airport, after all it serves a very small percentage of passengers to Spain.

total visitors to Murcia region this year is something like 1% total of Brits visiting Spain

sadly most operators are persuaded to use Alicante as it serves  the much bigger tourist areas of Valencia inc Benidorm, Calpe, Moraira  etc. 

chicken and egg really, passengers are happy to fly to Alicante therefore the airlines either believe or are not aware of more demand for San Javier which was busy during the inspection trips boom.

San Javier serves mainly holiday homes and passengers don't check in baggage or buy extras like the tourists to Alicante do, making more money for the airlines.

personally cannot see the demand for Corvera from airlines when Alicante numbers keep growing.

whatever contracts the Spanish sign or agree to are not worth a light.

another Spanish White Elephant for a while yet.

I totally agree, San Javier is a small but smartly run airport which we have used many times. Although there can be limited flights from UK airports.

Only my opinion, but the only thing that is ever going to fly into Corvera airport is a herd of pink elephants.......

Corvera &  Paramount theme park will never happen in our life time.We all have to wait an extremely long time to see appreciation in our properties where market forces come in to play. Would not rely on these potential projects to ever come to realisation.

Hi

Why are there no flights from San Javier Murcia to Manchester in December by

none from Glasgow either. Easyjet from Gatwick goes to MJV in the Winter.

Usually we fly into Alicante in the Winter

First it was the operators going bust.

Then it was the delay settling the St.Javier close-down

Then  the huge loan transfer had to be authorised by the EU

Now we are told that Corvera is in the MATZ zone and the military have refused to allow civil flights to take place

Let's start again......... Once upon a time.............

I am interested in some contents of the last post and where Woodbug you have picked up the information tha Corvera is in the MATZ zone and that flights cannot take place, because this hasn't been reported anywhere

Sticking to the facts as reported yes they are still waiting for the rubber stamp from the EU on the loan and the final amounts to close San Javier

On the actual real news a number of staff have recently moved onto Corvera including the return of the manager and the recruitment of more staff has begun in ange, see below plus we aee getting rental enquires from staff

http://www.tumbit.com/news/articles/9449-murcias-corvera-airport-begins-recruiting.html

One airline has announced that they will be flying into Corvera, when it opens and it is noticable the reduction of scheduled flights into San Javier

What a load of rubbish! The Corvera  'no fly zone' has been reported for years:

Costa Almeria News, Wikipedia/en, Your Spain, Costa Blanca news, Polaris World Forum etc. Last week there was an extract of a meeting on a local Murcia forum in which an engineer on the project agreed that Covera was in a no fly MATZ zone.

Let's hope this can be overcome and Corvera will open - but two international airports within a few kilometres of each other in a military air-zone? It comes as no surprise that Covera are recruiting staff even though it is nowhere near ready to open and this will end in the usual Spanish flood of tears and huge compensations to buy back contracts. 

There is very little in Murcia to attract visitors, hence a very low % share of the total in Spain so does it really need two international airports? In 2011 a contract was signed to close St Javiert in 2012 yet that same year 67 million euros was spent on a new runway, a new air traffic control tower, enlarging the departures lounge, making the car park bigger, and constructing a new electrical station.............. Not really convincing is it? Glad to hear that your business is benefiting from this recruitment drive - but I wouldn't be to keen to issue long-term agreements to tenants engaged on this project to nowhere.

Please check your sources or privude a link for this claimed information because Corvera is not a no fly zone as claimed and the area is already cleared by the parachute base at Alcantarilla, as I have tried to explain I am local to the area, there are currently NO air traffic issues

The expactation is realistic for the airport to open in December, but that it will not really have any flights till after April and that an agreement will be made with San javier to close, removing the AENA monopoly on 2 airports locally and their focus on marketing Alicante flights

So are you saying that you think Corvera airport will take over all San Javier flights for 2015 summer ?  I have just booked flights into San Javier from Bournemouth for August 2015 - Ryanair.  

InspectorhomeSpain, you mention that "One airline has announced that they will be flying into Corvera" - I must have missed this, which one was it please (hope it's not RyanAir).

I have already supplied you with the reference sources in respect of this matter. Lets hope that all your dreams come true and that we will all be flying into Covera in a few months although there are no flight slots approved or even applied for and that the speed at which closing St.Javier and opening Covera has to be achieved to meet your dates would be a first - even if there were no financial and geographical difficulties to overcome. Alicante Elche passenger numbers are on course to top 10m this year and St Javier will host under 1m during 2014 Thats less than half a million passengers per airport if as claimed, both will operate for a year. I don't know about airplanes in the sky but there is plenty of pie is the sky in Corvera at the moment.

Ok here we go with currebt information startiing with the CURRENT situaton with airspace controls, there are numerous articles on Tumbit and one specific link below which clearly state that these are resolved, not just a general refference to MATZ and is fair to say that the flight paths will be more difficult to manage

http://www.theleader.info/article/33834/spain/national/opening-of-corvera-airport-delayed-to-2013/

Next the expectation as I stated is to open but maybe not see any volume flights till at least April 2015 especially when the next flight slots meeting I believe is in December

The only airline flight information is nothing exciting Air Nostrum, featured on Tumbit,  with their Madrid flight

The growing number of passengers at Alicante and the declining business at San Javier has now become one of the key issues driving the changes for the region and the politicians

There are of course many other factors involved in this and one that is always missed is that Corvera is planned to be an international airport, with the necessary infrastructure to attract flights from outside Europe, and some of the discussions that we have had is with airlines outside of Europe

This morning I have been to Cartagena and docked there was the Royal Caribean ship, The Independance of the Seas on a visit, the town was very busy mainly with americans and Cartagena wants to become a cruise starting point but needs an international airport, with direct flights