MELILLA, March 9 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Government Delegation highlighted this Saturday that Melilla Airport has exceeded “for the first time” half a million travelers and 10,000 flights last year.
These results place 2023 as the year with the highest infrastructure traffic, with a total of 501,069 users and 10,755 operations, which shows growth of 12% in passengers and 10.1% in movements compared to 2022.
To address this progressive increase in traffic, the institution chaired by Sabrina Moh has highlighted that the Ministry of Transportation, through National Airports (AENA), will extend the operating hours starting March 31, 2024, coinciding with the start of the summer season.
The government agency has detailed that, from then on, the airport will provide service from 7:15 a.m. to 10:15 p.m. throughout the year. Furthermore, he has asserted that the infrastructure “is prepared to handle, with all safety guarantees, night flights outside of its operating hours, such as medical evacuations and organ transplants.”
As he explained, during the meeting of the Airport Coordination Committee that was established this week in the Spanish city in North Africa, they confirmed that “the recovery of traffic and its progression during 2023 highlight the importance of these infrastructures as channels of air transport, but also, and above all, as fundamental links for territorial structuring, the economic development of their environments and attention to needs as essential for society as medical flights or those of the National Transplant Organization”.
During the meeting, the actions carried out by the airport aimed at optimizing operational capacity, as well as security, maintenance and quality of passenger service, were also reviewed. This is the case of the expansion of the departure lounge or the security control. All of this, aimed at gaining agility in airport processes and offering passengers the best possible experience.
The Delegation highlighted that the meeting also addressed AENA’s tariff bonuses and incentives, “especially advantageous for companies that increase their activity at airports with less than three million passengers annually, as is the case of Melilla.” In this regard, it has asserted that “airlines will be exempt from paying the per-passenger fee for all travelers additional to those in 2023 for three consecutive years.”
Regarding transport by sea, there was also a meeting of the Joint Commission, made up of representatives of the Government of the Autonomous City of Melilla and the Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility to monitor compliance with public service obligations in the Melilla-Almería, Melilla-Granada and Melilla-Seville routes, which are operated under contract.
At this meeting, the Delegation reported, “compliance with the operational parameters was reviewed, which is satisfactory, and the positive evolution of traffic on these routes has been highlighted, with a flight offer greater than the minimum required and high factors Of occupation”.
