USA among possible New Destinations from Alicante Airport

With the arrival of the spring and summer in which travel, both within Spain and abroad, is experiencing exponential growth, airlines have announced new routes that will begin operating from March from the Costa Blanca’s Alicante - Elche Miguel Hernández airport.

In addition to the confirmed routes the President of the Alicante Diputación said at the FITUR Travel Fair in Madrid that he also wants direct flights from Alicante to the USA this year.

He said that he is committed to US tourism due to the great offer of "language tourism" available at the University of Alicante and the UMH, as well as the fact that Alicante is consolidating itself as a base port for cruise ships in the scheduling of visits by shipping companies in the Mediterranean . “We are raising the bar and we are going to start working on a US tourism strategy. It is the pearl we are missing. My goal is that we work together with the Generalitat and the airport authorities to negotiate with tour operators, agencies and airlines”, Mazón stated.

“It is the most powerful challenge we have set ourselves to date and we are going for it. There have never been direct regular flights from the US to Alicante. We are the number one destination for Erasmus. Why not compete to also attract students from the United States,” said Mazón at IFEMA.

Of the confirmed routes that were announced, a total of 17 will be launched between the three Valencian Community airports, (Valencia airport, Alicante-Elche Miguel Hernández airport and Castellón-Costa de Azahar airport. From Alicante, there will be ten more routes between the months of March, April, and May.

Ryanair, the Irish low-cost airline, will launch five of them, connecting Alicante Elche airport with the Austrian city of Klagenfurt and the German region of Paderborn Lippstadt. Starting in March, it will also be possible to travel to Belfast, the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, and domestically, Santander. In May, Ryanair will open a further new toute with the Italian city of Turin.

There will be two destination in Nordic countries from Alicante starting in April.

The Norwegian airline will launch a connection to Stockholm Skavsta, serving the capital of Sweden, and another to the Norwegian city of Haugesund. With Norwegian you can also travel to Aalborg, a spectacular city in northern Denmark.

In May, Niceair will open a route with Iceland, and it will be possible to fly from Alicante to the city of Akureyri. In May, the German airline Condor will link the cities of Alicante and Düsseldorf.

Also in a tweet last week, SOUTHEND Airport has teased at potentially bringing back Alicante airport as a flight destination as it announced that easyJet will be running flights to Amsterdam from May.

One cheeky customer jokingly quipped: “You’ve spelt Alicante wrong.”

A recent Facebook post by the airport encouraged customers to voice their support for an Alicante flight with a poll finding that it is the most wanted new destination from the airport. Taking the jab in good spirits, an airport spokesman cryptically replied: “Maybe tomorrow, but not today!”

And they received a huge response, as the Twitter and Facebook posts combined received more than 250 comments in just 24 hours.

But it’s not all good news for the air travel industry as, once again, Spanish Air Traffic Controllers have announced strike action.

The Usca and CC.OO. unions, which represent Air Traffic Controllers in privatised control towers, have called a five-day strike between January and February, "before the failure of the negotiations" of the collective agreement.

The strikes will take place on Monday 30 January, and February 6, 13, 20 and 27 in the control towers of A Coruña, Alicante-Elche, Castellón, Cuatro Vientos, El Hierro, Fuerteventura, Ibiza, Jerez, Lanzarote, La Palma, Lleida, Murcia, Sabadell, Seville, Valencia and Vigo.