Alex Trelinski
ALICANTE-ELCHE airport has broken the one million passenger mark for January for the first time in its 58-year history.
Airport operator Aena said 1,057,214 people used the Costa Blanca facility last month- up 10.3% on the previous year, which previously held the January record.
In percentage terms, the Alicante-Elche passenger figures last month grew faster than Spain’s five busiest airports.
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Over a quarter of passengers came from the United Kingdom.
The latest record comes after Alicante-Elche set an annual best in 2024 of over 18.3 million people.
International traffic accounted for the vast majority of last month’s figure with 891,101 passengers registered- 10.6% increase.
Nevertheless, domestic travellers on 165,688 were up 9.5% annually.
UK passengers maintained their stranglehold on the foreign market in January with 296,539 travellers- a third of overseas of arrivals.
The Netherlands lagged far behind with 80,379; Belgium with 67,608; and Germany on 66,290.
The developing market with Poland continues to expand with 65,387 passengers.
Records are set to continue tumbling during 2025 with new routes announced by Ryanair this summer to Poland and Austria as well as basing two new aircraft at Alicante-Elche.
Jet2’s new Luton base will see increased connections while EasyJet will launch high season routes to Athens and Naples.
