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Pilar Martínez
Malaga
Friday, 16 August 2024, 11:24
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The airport in Malaga is the beating heart of tourism on the Costa del Sol and across Andalucía. It is the infrastructure that pumps most passengers into Malaga province by far.
Therefore, every time there is a rise in passenger numbers at the airport there is an increase in income for tourism, which is the Costa del Sol's main industry.
There can be no better news for growth, therefore, than the record-breaking passenger figures we have been seeing each month. From January to July this year, more than 14.1 million passengers arrived or departed through the airport terminals, meaning Malaga has surged so far by 1.6 million users compared to last year.
However, this growth rate of 13.2% so far this year, higher than the national average, is beginning to sound alarm bells in the industry and put pressure on the airport's current infrastructure. In a nutshell, the airport is at risk of meltdown if the current five-year investment plan for the facilities is not updated. It cannot keep filling up at the rate it is unless something is done.
The growth targets for Malaga - and what needs to be done to meet them - are written down in a document approved by ministers in Madrid for a period of five years. The current roadmap is in place for 2022 to 2026 - yet real growth overtook the predicted growth in that plan last year. What's more, the forecast for the whole of this year in the plan will be smashed in just one month's time.
The current, only official guidelines to what investment the airport's infrastructure needs are those in the so-called Dora strategic plan 2022-2026, approved in September 2021.
Dora sets out the conditions to be met by airports in Spain run by the part-state-owned Aena airport network, which is almost all of them. Aena is obliged by the government to offer a quality service with sufficient capacity to meet demand over a five-year regulatory period. Operator Aena must also provide necessary plans to develop an efficient, competitive and sustainable service in the long term. Technically, we are on Dora II - the second document to be approved within the Spanish airport regulation framework.
In terms of Malaga Airport specifically, the Dora II says the actual facilities are designed to handle a maximum of 30 million passengers a year and serve 9,500 passengers per hour (before collapsing under the strain).
Last year ended with more than 22.3 million passengers and 161,684 flights, that is, 21% more than in 2022. If the current rate of growth keeps up, by 2024 the figure could exceed 25 million. Experts forecast that by applying a 10% growth rate, (lower than the real, actual rate), the airport's capacity of 30 million passengers will be reached in 2026.
The problem is that the current airport five-year plan envisages that this airport will end 2026 with 20.7 million passengers and 150,810 flight take-offs and landings, figures already beaten in 2023. For this year, 2024, the plan forecast a total of 16.6 million passengers passing through. But in the first seven months alone, January to July, the real figure was already over 14.1 million.
The plan was approved after the Covid-19 pandemic with the expectation of a slower recovery than what has really happened - that is, 23.7% more passengers and 18% more flights in 2023 compared to 2019.
It was unimaginable at the time the plan was written in 2021 that the airport would grow so fast, and this growth appears to be here to stay. The year-on-year increases are becoming the norm and concern is growing in the tourist industry along the Costa del Sol.
The biggest worry is that the investment planned to meet the airport's growth is based on the outdated plan's forecast of passenger numbers. That is to say, Dora II forecast a passenger throughput of 20.7 million in 2026, but the airport actually closed 2023 with 22.3 million, almost two million above it and three years early.
The local tourism industry is calling for an urgent update on these forecasts in line with current air traffic data, especially as anything done to increase the airport's capacity would require several years to develop. The last big expansion of the airport - a new terminal in 2010 and second runway in 2012 - started to be planned in 2004.
Malaga Airport regularly refers back to its outdated five-year plan when talking about the future. Speaking in his most recent interview with SUR, airport boss Pedro Bendala said, "Malaga Airport will never hold back the development of the Costa del Sol."
He also sent out a message of reassurance, explaining that, in terms of planning, the airport works "at different rates: from day to day: from summer into winter and, within the current Dora II five-year plan, we are thinking about and planning proposals so that when the new document is designed, necessary steps are taken".
Among those being considered, as SUR reported a few months ago, Aena has already commissioned a study of how to increase capacity in the newer part of the airport, known as T3, a contract which was awarded to Malaga firm Aertec, specialists in aeronautics and aerospace technology.
However, for any extension to go ahead, planners will have to wait now for the next strategic Dora plan to start in 2027, unless it can be shown that the whole airport network in Spain is growing faster than expected by 10 percentage points, in which case emergency measures could be taken.
Meanwhile, while no emergency change of plan kicks in, the Spanish government is planning a 88-million-euro investment at Malaga Airport from 2022 to 2026. The largest expenditure, 34 million euros, is to improve the safety of passengers, workers and facilities, followed by 21.5 million for infrastructure support and replacement.
But the tourism industry says those figures fall far short of the investment required by the airport at the current rate of growth in passengers and flight movements, especially with a maximum capacity limit that is getting ever closer to being reached.
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