Edition 298
www.thecourier.es
Friday 18th November 2016
UP, UP, AND AWAY BY ALEX TRELINSKI
THE COURIER TV GUIDE
L
ow-cost carrier Ryanair says that they don’t see any future falls in UK visitor numbers flying into AlicanteElche airport because of Brexit and the current low exchange rate between the pound and the euro. The comments came after Valencian political leaders expressed concern about the possible uncertainty of what might happen in regard to UK tourists visiting the Costa Blanca over the next few years. Speaking at the launch of Ryanair’s routes for next summer, the company’s marketing director for Spain, José Espartero, said that the Costa Blanca region “is very powerful, and even
though their spending power might be reduced, British tourists are still very much drawn by the area”. The Ryanair official said that he also hoped the company would expand their fleet of aircraft at Alicante-Elche sometime in the future. The flight schedule for the period between March and October 2017 includes four new summer services to Aberdeen, Belfast, Glasgow, and Gatwick, in addition to extra services to LeedsBradford, Liverpool, Manchester, and Newcastle. Espartero claimed that the service extensions will see an additional 400 thousand people use AlicanteElche airport, taking figures to around four million pas-
sengers a year, adding that the company will be running 54 routes to and from the facility at El Altet, contributing to keeping some three thousand jobs at the airport. The flight levels and passenger numbers though will return to what Ryanair had at Alicante-Elche back in 2010, before the carrier withdrew a whole raft of flights in a dispute over the use of passenger air bridges at the new airport terminal. Espartero claims that Ryanair won concessions in the air bridge dispute, reducing the turnaround time from 45 minutes to 25 minutes, but also added that whilst Barcelona and Madrid airports needed air bridges for security reasons, that
was simply not the case for Alicante-Elche. He also fired a threat and broadside at the Valencian government over their proposed new tourist tax on holiday accommodation. Though there is absolutely no suggestion that an additional tax would be levied on aircraft coming in and out of the Valencia region, Espartero proclaimed that Ryanair would reduce the number of flights using Alicante-Elche airport if a hypothetical tax had an impact on air traffic. He went as far as to threaten (in a repeat of the air bridge dispute), that that the company would quit Alicante-Elche airport altogether and look for fresh markets.