Fifty years of the primary direct worldwide flight from Almería airport

The principle airline primarily based in the UK, British Airways, launched in Might 1974 the primary direct and common air connection from Almería airport to overseas. Fifty years in the past, London was the primary worldwide vacation spot that Almerian might attain with out the necessity to cease or switch. There have been 123 eating places and 19 cafes within the province then. and simply over 200,000 vacationers stayed within the inns annually, over 80% Spanish. Fifty years have handed since then Sean Connery, throughout a break from filming ‘The Wind and the Lion’, immortalized browsing the seashores of Almería. Greater than 15,000 spectators crammed the outdated La Falange stadium to look at what was then AD Almería’s match of the century towards Córdoba and a dozen eggs value 42 pesetas.

In that area which was nonetheless promoted because the Costa del Sol – earlier than this model was related to the coast of Málaga – and which was nonetheless unconnected with the vacationer growth that different areas of the Mediterranean suffered from the start of the sixties, there was an actual milestone in touch after they landed a delegation of English journalists invited by the British firm par excellence acquired by the consultant of British Airways, Olegario Lozano, after which the consultant of Data and Tourism, Emilio Llorca. After that first flight that they had the chance to find a very unknown vacation spot within the south-east of Spain, having fun with a go to to the Alcazaba, amongst different enclaves, and several other days of lodging in inns in Roquetas and Mojácar.

This weekly connection between Almería and Gatwick airports – 45 kilometers from London – predicted the eventual significance of the Anglo-Saxon market for tourism within the province as a result of, though as we speak they’re the primary base of worldwide exercise, at the moment they had been nonetheless an virtually left half within the weak passenger statistics. Because the El Alquián facility opened its doorways on February 6, 1968, with an funding of practically 350 million pesetas, there have been no direct flights overseas and, in actual fact, the British connection was the one common continuous service operated in that decade. 4 years earlier – 1970 – you may fly to Paris each Sunday, however it was by way of Valencia airport.

4 years earlier than the flight to London you may fly to Paris each Sunday, however it was a route with a cease at Valencia airport

The flight to London lasted solely two years, however it marked an period and represented an period earlier than and after in Almería’s aviation historical past by speaking immediately with overseas, a privilege not achieved because the airport opened its doorways six years in the past. earlier than after three phases of labor. That summer season in 1974, simply a few months after the British landed with British Airways, they landed on the capital’s airport. the primary charters of the German firms LTU and Hapag Lloyd and the English Britannia. Iberia additionally contributed to the worldwide motion by extending the road with Barcelona to Germany throughout the winter months and to the UK in the summertime.

Within the metropolis’s tourism media, it was lamented that the primary common line to the world was suppressed, as reported within the newspaper The nation in its September 1976 version, and that was strongly questioned no initiatives had been carried out to “diversify” provides and employees within the Cabo de Gata space contributing to a big discount in British tourism which was starting to journey to the province. The flight to London was canceled on 9 October 1976 as a result of it was a “deficit line” within the context of the financial disaster that hit worldwide tourism within the late Nineteen Seventies.

That yr, when the Almería-London route was dismantled, 256,066 vacationers arrived within the province, surpassing a million in a single day stays for the primary time, however no even 20% from different nations. This month they’re fulfilled the golden anniversary of that British Airways flight again in 2018however it was misplaced once more throughout the pandemic as a result of weak passenger outcomes and the robust competitors it discovered from different firms that had been repeatedly connecting the Almeria area with the UK equivalent to TUI, Jet2, Ryanair or EasyJet.

Greater than 235,000 vacationers got here to the UK final yr

Greater than 31 million passengers have handed by way of Almería airport because it opened its doorways. The vacation spot of Almería closed its statistics for final yr with 775,393 customers, which represents a rise of 10% in comparison with the earlier yr and recovers virtually 80% of the site visitors it had earlier than an epidemic. Based on Aena information, 374,555 passengers had a vacation spot or origin in a Spanish metropolis, and 395,955 selected flights overseas. Concerning the overseas market, many of the demand was in the UK, with 235,226 passengers, adopted, at a fantastic distance, by Belgium (45,321), the Netherlands (22,360), Eire (21,908 ), France (17,277), Luxembourg (13,204), Czech Republic (11,775), Poland (9,007) and Germany (8,560). If worldwide flights accounted for 51% of exercise final yr, the British sector is the primary reference with 30% of complete worldwide passengers. The Almería-London (Gatwick) line was the third with essentially the most site visitors, behind solely the connections with Madrid and Barcelona. Between January and April 2024, there are already 203,378 customers, 27.7% greater than in the identical interval of the earlier yr.