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Alicante-Elche Miguel Hernández Airport is gearing up for an even busier winter season. Between November and March, travellers will find more flights and a wider range of destinations than last year, keeping the Costa Blanca well connected even outside the summer months.

 

According to the latest air connectivity report from the Costa Blanca Tourism Board, the airport is set to expand its winter destinations by at least 4%. This means 206 routes for the upcoming winter season, up from 198 last year.

 

The increase comes from both new destinations and the extension of popular summer routes. The UK remains a strong market and there are also some new connections to Eastern Europe including Poland and Moldova.

 

Some highlights include Fly One and Sky Up continuing flights to Chisinau in Moldova from November. Wizz Air will maintain connections to Belgrade in Serbia and Milan. Other summer routes set to continue into the winter include Bratislava with Wizz Air, Santander with Vueling, Lyon with easyJet, alongside several UK cities such as Bournemouth, London and Newcastle.

 

The report estimates a growth of around 7.1% in the number of flights, with roughly 7.5 million seats available for departures and arrivals.

 

Ryanair will remain a key player, operating nearly half of the airport’s traffic with up to 77 connections, although slightly fewer than the 90 offered last summer.

 

In the absence of official confirmation from the company itself, which has yet to reveal its final plans following the crisis with Aena over the rise in airport taxes, these connections would include the continuation of routes to Linz and Salzburg in Austria and Bydgoszcz in Poland, bringing its total connections to ten in Poland. Most flights will still focus on the UK and Germany with 23 and 11 routes, respectively. On the domestic front, Ryanair plans to operate flights to Lanzarote, Ibiza, Palma, Sevilla and Vitoria, following the cancellation of services to Santiago de Compostela.

 

Other airlines are also boosting their winter schedules. EasyJet plans 17 routes mostly to the UK, with additional connections to Lyon, Naples, Geneva and Basel. Jet2.com will fly to 13 UK destinations, while Norwegian will offer flights to Denmark, Finland, Germany, Latvia and ten airports in Norway.

 

Plans to expand the terminal to deal with increasing demand are still pending, which would eventually allow the airport to handle at least 26 million passengers annually.

 

 

Image: Archive