GIBRALTAR AIRPORT I PROFILE
Having ploughed on through Brexit and Covid, Gibraltar Airport is determined to continue looking up as 2022 passenger figures recover and rise back to 2019 levels. With hopes high of a common travel area between Gibraltar and the EU’s Schengen border-free area, it could just unlock the potential the airport craves, asserted Air Terminal Director Terence Lopez. By Andy Probert.
Atangible air of quiet frustration continues to envelop Gibraltar Airport Terminal at the enormous untapped potential going begging.
Gibraltar has been British since it was captured by Anglo-Dutch marines in 1704 during the War of the Spanish Succession. It was later formally ceded by the Crown of Spain to the Crown of Britain in perpetuity. However, Spain has maintained a claim over the sovereignty of Gibraltar, which both the United Kingdom and the Gibraltarians reject.
“We are hopeful for change, but in reality, our staff remain focused on pro viding an excellent traveller experi ence,” commented Terence Lopez, Air Terminal Director, who, from his office window, can look across the frontier into Spain.
The airport has, in Mr Lopez’s words, “continued to punch above its weight” in offering a gateway into and out of The Rock. The air terminal remained open despite Brexit and Covid-19, and in 2022 pas senger numbers are now recovering well Schengen hopes Gibraltar Airport is a military airport which handles civilian flights. It gained strategic importance during the Second World War. A runway was built, and the first commer cial traffic arrived from the UK shortly after the conflict ended.
2006 saw the governments of Spain, Gibraltar, and the UK sign the Cordoba Agreement, which lifted a flight ban between Spain and Gibraltar and agreed a commitment to build an air terminal that could serve Gibraltar and the sur rounding area.
The new terminal building opened in 2012 and now has three departure gates, a separate general aviation wing and a cargo facility, even though most cargo coming into Gibraltar presently does so by land.
Mr Lopez commented: “Gibraltar left the EU at the same time as the UK when Brexit occurred. The future relationship between Gibraltar and the whole of the EU is now being explored.
“Effectively, the proposal is that Gibraltar has an arrangement with the Schengen zone for travel purposes. That in itself could open doors for us with regional traffic and extra traffic from Schengen states, which are presently blocked. But it is a case of waiting to see what happens.”
Pandemic poser
Perversely, the pandemic helped the airport buck the trend as neighbouring airports and countries shut down due to travel restrictions. He explained: “It was a case of getting all our nationals home and assisting in repatriating other citizens back to their countries.
“With Spain closing, the Government of Gibraltar had to look at all options, so they chartered a British Airways flight three times a week. We acted as a life line for Gibraltar to the outside world.”
At the beginning of the pandemic, swabs for testing patients locally for Covid-19 had to be flown to UK labs. “The airport played a very vital part, and at times our flights were the only ones crossing the Spanish mainland.”
He added the UK Government then decided to distribute vaccinations and flew them into Gibraltar. “We never shut during this challenging period. We may have had to scale down operations, but we continued maintenance and training.
“The vaccination programme was excellent as it enabled the airport to become a ‘Green’ destination and one of the first places people could travel to. The influx of passenger traffic has continued to increase.
“In remaining open as an essential ser vice, we have not suffered the issues other airports have. We kept all our staff and all our processes up to date. This meant that we were up and running with no problems.”
During the pandemic, the Port of Gibraltar was one of the few to remain open, and this enabled seafarers to return home via the airport. “We shot up in our charter aircraft numbers quite con siderably in 2020 and 2021, with most dedicated to repatriating seafarers,” noted Mr Lopez. “We have been thanked by many global shipping companies for that service.”
Looking up
For the airport, things remain upbeat. Between January and July 2022, pas senger numbers totalled 249,444, com pared to 282,129 for the same period in 2019 and 244,616 in 2018. Total pas senger numbers for the whole of 2021 stood at 262,522.
“The take away from these figures is that the airport is on the road to recovery and rapidly chasing down those 2019 numbers,” said Mr Lopez, adding that Tourism Minister Vijay Daryanani remained proactive in trying to bring in new airlines.
The airport currently serves Gatwick, Heathrow, Manchester, Bristol and Edinburgh. “Passenger loads have been very good, and we will continue to look at ourselves in a new, post-Covid world to see where we fit in. And clearly, we have a role there.”
With its prosperous finance centre and thriving port, the airport snugly fits in well between Malaga and Jerez, the two larger regional rival airports that focus more on the mass market all-inclusive, hotelseeking traveller.
“We are small, but I think we can grow and adapt our destination footprint. Opening the doors to Europe would be fantastic, but we can still fulfil more potential from the UK market.”
While it previously hosted flights from Morocco, they were suspended due to Covid. As the country slowly opens up, there are hopes Gibraltar comes back on its radar.
Mr Lopez said: “Half of our passengers cross into Spain and come back for their return flights. It would be nice to capture a larger percentage of those travellers to stay in Gibraltar.”
With the Minister for Business and Tourism, Vijay Daryanani, having embarked on an unprecedented and proactive marketing drive to raise Gibraltar’s profile even further, there is no doubt that Gibraltar will be recog nised as a destination, and not just as a stepping stone to elsewhere. n
