Malaga Airport director Bendala: 'With the new aircraft, we will establish more long-haul routes'
The regional government of Andalucía announces the revival of La Bajadilla marina project in Marbella at the conference on transport infrastructure
Malaga Airport is about to receive the new fleet of Airbus 321 XLR aircraft, which will allow airlines to establish more long-haul routes with ease, connecting America and Asia. This was announced by Malaga Airport director Pedro Bendala during the transport infrastructure conference on Thursday, 23 October.
At the round table, Bendala said, "The 321 XLR is a narrow-aisle aircraft that can do 4700 miles and connect the East Coast of the US with all of Europe."
"You no longer have to fill a plane with 300 people; you can fill it with 180 people and that opens up a lot of opportunities for other airlines, even medium-size ones, in an airport like Malaga."
Malaga will have more routes after the reform
Bendala also talked about the plans for reform and expansion of the facilities. "The airport we are going to design will allow an airline to operate in 'hub' mode: everything will be laid out to enable domestic, Schengen and non-Schengen international connections, with the necessary passport controls; everything will be coherent and require only minimal walking," he stated.
From there, the decision will be up to the companies. "We are halfway between northern Europe and Africa, which is an untapped market," Bendala said.
'What we want is to attract more traffic to Malaga Airport and people from more destinations'
At the meeting, Bendala was accompanied by other authorities from the air transport industry, such as Antonio Gómez-Guillamón and José Manuel Hesse, who agreed with him. "We are a privileged destination, capable of attracting traffic from every corner of Europe and increasingly further afield, from the Middle East, North Africa and from time to time, transatlantic destinations. What we have to do is work even harder in this direction," Gómez-Guillamón stated.
"What we want is to attract more traffic and people from more destination," the participants said, adding that they are interested in Malaga's entrepreneurs, who need to travel a lot for work. According to the experts, the new generation of 321 XLR aircraft will allow them to establish many more routes.
Return of the La Bajadilla project
The conference also touched on other subjects such as port development. The Andalusian ports agency talked about the revival of the La Bajadilla marina project, hoping that the new concession could be granted in the first half of 2026.
General director of the ports agency Ignacio Álvarez-Ossorio hopes there would be no obstacles, referring to the pending authorisations from the central government, which must approve the expansion of the dock to allow for additional berths and a commercial area on the docks. Álvarez-Ossorio said that, in April, the regional government gave the green light for the project to undergo a unified environmental impact assessment, a measure that will help shorten this stage of the process.
