But international passengers were up, says the happy director of the airport.
First the stats:
705.552 people passed through the gates at Almeria Airport (LEI) in 2013. That’s a drop of 5.9% over 2012.
But 391.743 of them were coming from lugares lejanos. Of course, we don’t know how many of them were kids from the hills with a one way ticket out of here.
The Director – I forget her name and it’s not mentioned in the press release – reckons that if we strip out private traffic, the drop is only about 4.7%, so it’s almost good news.
But the number of flights plummeted by 16.2%, to 10.593.
In short, what we’re seeing are more large international passenger planes and fewer transport / private planes. Which isn’t too bad, really. We have the new Eastern European flights which are bringing in the Ruskies as well as new connections to the UK, Holland and the Nordic countries.
And the fuss over San Javier / Corvera should work in our favour, as the airlines debate whether to risk setting up in an airport which might close, or might not….. and decide to go to either Alicante or Almería instead.