Spain Opens Airports to International Flights in Costa Blanca, Tenerife, Sevilla and More After Facing Pressure from Corporate Lobby Groups

THE Spanish government had originally planned to keep five airports open for international flights; however, corporate pressure has caused Spain to expand this privilege.

The Minister of Transport, Jose Luis Abalos, tweeted that “in order to cover the demand for flights we will include the airports of Alacant-Elx, Valencia, Tenerife, Fuerteventura, Lanzarote, Sevilla, Eivissa and Menorca” as international entry points for flights and sanitary emergencies.

Currently in Spain there are 50 international airports and two heliports. Out of these 46 airports and the two heliports are under Aena’s management.

Originally the order decreed by the Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda on May 14 stated that “the entrance to Spain would be limited by various designated points of entry, with the capacity to attend to sanitary emergencies of international scale and importance” which, initially, only included five airports Barcelona, Madrid, Gran Canarias, Malaga, and Mallorca.

However, after receiving various complaints from an array of business collectives and representatives, the Minister of Transport, Jose Luis Abalos, announced the incorporation of an additional five airports to this order.

One of the most belligerent associations rallying for an expansion of open airports had been the Hospitality Industry Association of Benidorm and Costa Blanca, whose president, Nuria Montes, branded the decree as “unreasonable.”

Montes expressed that not opening other airports was sending a “message to the tourist markets to sink Spain, asking them to operate in other areas rather than Spain where things are handled a bit better.”

The Balearic Government also rejected the first order and demanded that Ibiza and Menorca’s airports be included in that list, which has now been accepted by the Central Government.

All in all, there are 18 points of entry into the country, 13 airports and eight ports. The objective of these reopenings is for these infrastructures to de-escalate into a new normality with “maximum security and health guarantees whilst progressively recuperating the levels of social and economic well-being experienced pre-crisis.”