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Date Published: 12/02/2025

Alicante Airport smashes records with more than 1 million passengers in January

International travellers fuelled a 10.3% surge on the Costa Blanca, with the UK, Netherlands and Belgium leading the way

Alicante-Elche Miguel Hernández Airport is off to a flying start in 2025, setting yet another historic record by surpassing one million passengers in January for the first time ever.

A total of 1,057,214 travellers passed through the airport last month, marking an impressive 10.3% increase compared to January 2024, which had previously held the record.

Once again, international visitors dominated the numbers, with a 10.6% rise that brought the total to 891,101 passengers. The UK remained the top source of travellers, with 296,539 passengers, followed a long way back by the Netherlands (80,379), Belgium (67,608), Germany (66,290) and Poland (65,387).

Domestic travel also saw a healthy boost of 9.5%, reaching 165,688 passengers.

Unsurprisingly, this surge in passengers coincided with a record number of flight operations, with the airport handling 7,123 flights, a 10.1% increase compared to January 2024.

The momentum at Alicante-Elche Airport has been building since last spring, with the Costa Blanca aerodrome consistently surpassing the one-million-passenger mark every month. In 2024, the airport closed the year with more than 18.3 million passengers, making it the fastest-growing major airport in Spain and even surpassing Málaga Airport in terms of annual growth.

This January, Alicante-Elche continued its impressive trajectory, outperforming Spain’s other top five airports in percentage growth: Adolfo Suárez Madrid Barajas airport grew by 8.4%; Barcelona's El Prat by 5.4%; Gran Canaria by 6.2%; Málaga by 1.9%; and Tenerife by 6.8%.

And while Alicante is now Spain’s sixth-busiest airport, it’s closing the gap on Tenerife (1.28 million passengers) and Málaga (1.37 million passengers) as it climbs the rankings.

The airport’s record-breaking streak reflects the continued growth of the Costa Blanca as a major tourist and travel hub and plans are well underway to expand the existing terminal and taxiways, which means that the aerodrome will be able to cater to an even higher demand in the near future.

Also of interest: Ryanair calls Spanish minister a 'clown' and threatens to raise ticket prices

Image: Archive

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