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A record 630 flights departed and landed at Malaga Airport on Sunday 14 July. It is the most operations recorded at the Costa del Sol airport in a single day.
Airport sources said these are "preliminary, not consolidated" figures, although they tend to vary only slightly, "so clearly the barrier of 600 operations in one day has already been broken".
According to data from the control tower, during hours of peak demand there is already almost one flight per minute (approximately one minute and 20 seconds), and a maximum of 50 flights in an hour. This figure is above the theoretical operational capacity of the airport, which is 46 landings and take-offs every 60 minutes.
630
landing and take-off operations in one day is the airport's new record.
Peak periods have also been extended from one or two hours a day in previous months, to now sustained peaks of four hours in the mornings, another 2-3 hours in the afternoon, and the nights are increasingly busier. "The peak season is no longer six months, but 11, it's a challenge."
This is happening without major delays or issues with too many planes being on the runway at the same time. Delays that are occurring are mainly due to adverse weather conditions in other parts of Europe.
50
hourly operations are being recorded at peak demand times.
The air traffic control centre said these figures are possible thanks to the implementation of the Midas project, which has led to an improvement in the operational capacity for the arrival and departure of aircraft. But it is also due to the good functioning of the entire airport as a whole, "a teamwork of controllers, airport operations, airline handling, crews and pilots, which means that, despite working with record after record, the quality of service remains high".
This is expected to be the trend in the coming weeks, as Malaga Airport is already facing the summer with the highest operating activity in its history. For the first time ever, more than a century ago, in July and August it will not drop below 500 take-offs and arrivals per day, between the two runways, according to official data.
"Today, the airport has sufficient operational capacity to comfortably handle its activity in the short and medium term," was the blunt response given by a spokesperson for Malaga Airport, which is operated byAena, to the question of whether these facilities still have room to continue growing, given the challenge posed by this new record of operations in July.
"The fact that at a given time the maximum number of flights per hour is exceeded very occasionally does not imply any operational problem since the flights are redistributed and fitted into the slots before or after. This is how the infrastructure is managed efficiently," the same source explained.
Technical sources from the airport emphasise that there is still a lot of room for growth during off-peak hours. First of all, Malaga Airport is open 24 hours a day. Currently, it operates for around 20 hours a day (there are usually no flights between 2am and 6am in the morning). If demand were equal to maximum capacity (46 movements per hour) for all this time, a total of 920 landing and take-off operations could be achieved every day.
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