Alicante airport - departures side

November figures for traffic passing through Alicante´s El Altet airport have been released and show a 5.9% increase - 2972 flights used the airport. The total number of passengers that walked through the airport over the month came to just over half a million, the exact figure being 519,746.
It comes as no surprise to hear that the British are the biggest customers, with a 2.2% increase on last years November figure and bringing 229,586 passengers through the airport. Next in terms of nationality come the Dutch, and although showing a massive 21.4% increase it fell miles short of British passengers at only 32,757 passengers. Following closely behind are the Norwegians with a 29.8% increase equating to 32,172 passengers and Germans with a 15% increase and 30,485 passengers.

However, what is rather extraordinary is that despite the commotion going on between Mr O´Leary and AENA, the airport operator at El Altet, Ryanair far outstrip any other airlines using it! 788 Ryanair flights landed and took off during the month of November, bringing 119,975 passengers - I bet a large majority of those came for the Benidorm fiesta and Fancy Dress Day! Next in terms of airlines comes Easyjet, with 486 flights and 72,092 passengers followed by Monarch at 190 flights and 38,600 passengers and Jet2 with 194 flights and 28,295 passengers.

"Duty Free" shop in El Altet

With so many people passing through the airport and spending money whilst waiting for their flight, it can be a lucrative business having an outlet there. The contract to run 80 Duty Free shops across 26 Spanish airports for the period 2013 to 2020 closed yesterday. They came in 3 batches: the first consisted of 11 airport and included the flagship Madrid Barajas airport whilst Alicante´s El Altet came in the second batch.

Bids came from numerous foreign owned companies, but the winner for the first 2 lots came from "Autogrill" who bid via the Spanish subsidiary "World Duty Free Group" - Autogrill are an Italian based group and the worlds biggest airport retailer. The contract will be formally confirmed on 18th December by the Ministry of Public Works, with the group promising big investment in the airport stores. In total for the 2 lots, AENA will receive around 1.64 billion euros of projected earnings over the 7 year contract... not a bad little earner.

But what Id like to know is who actually buys anything from these so called duty free shops! Tax and duty has already been paid on all the goods and you are not exempt unless traveling outside of the EU. Cigarettes are certainly MORE expensive than from the normal tobaco shops you find down every Spanish High Street so it leaves me somewhat baffled! I only see children harassing their parents to buy overpriced toblerone or bags of Haribo sweets or anxious husbands/boyfriends remembering that they haven´t got anything for their partners and heading for the perfume section....