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A Ryanair plane at Alicante-Elche Airport. Shootori
Alicante-Elche Airport Loses Flights to Santander

Alicante-Elche Airport Loses Flights to Santander

Ryanair Blames AENA for Loss of Connections Due to 'High' Fees | The Irish Airline Resumed the Route in 2023 After Cancelling it in 2011

Óscar Bartual Bardisa

Alicante

Martes, 28 de enero 2025, 07:20

Ryanair's ongoing conflict with AENA has now reached Alicante. Despite the Alicante-Elche airport being a major hub for the Irish airline, it has announced the cancellation of one of its flights to northern Spain.

Alicante will no longer have an air link with Santander, and Ryanair has disabled ticket sales on its website. The airline blames AENA for this decision, citing "excessive fees at Spanish regional airports," as the reason.

The Cantabrian terminal is part of this group of small Spanish airports, and Ryanair has warned of a 5% reduction in flights from Santander for the summer, including the cancellation of the Alicante connection.

This connection was resumed in 2023. The Irish airline reinstated flights between Alicante and Santander after operating the route between summer 2009 and autumn 2011. At that time, Ryanair also cited a conflict with AENA, the airport operator of El Altet terminal, as the main reason for the cancellation.

With the opening of the new terminal, telescopic walkways began to be used, a requirement Ryanair disagreed with, requesting that passengers board planes on foot, which AENA refused. The conflict led the company to close the route, which it resumed on March 26, 2023.

The connection will be cancelled after two years of operation, meaning Alicante will not have flights to Cantabria in 2025, despite the initial schedule planning two weekly links between the two cities. However, Ryanair has cancelled ticket sales and removed all traces of the route from its online search.

Conflict in Regional Airports

Recently, the airline issued a statement blaming the 18% reduction in its flights at regional airports on AENA for its "excessive fees and the ineffectiveness of incentive plans." Ryanair CEO Eddie Wilson stated that these "limit the growth of regional airports and leave vast areas of airport capacity underutilised."

Wilson directly blames AENA for the cancellation of these routes and claims he has been forced "to relocate aircraft and capacity to more competitive markets such as Italy, Sweden, Croatia, Hungary, and Morocco."

AENA responded to Ryanair by reminding them that the average fee for airlines will "remain frozen at 10.35 euros, one of the lowest in Europe," and highlighted that in these regional airports "there are commercial incentives funded by AENA, available to all airlines, which allow airport fees to drop to around 2 euros per passenger."

In a second statement, the airport operator has "cordially urged Ryanair to calm down and abandon its long-standing and regrettably infamous aggressive and threatening business and communication strategy, which is very difficult not to interpret as blackmail against AENA, the regions, and ultimately, the Spanish public."

How to Travel from Alicante to Santander

With the cancellation of flights to Santander, the bus and train are now the only transport options for travelling from Alicante to the capital of Cantabria. Renfe offers a daily link between the two cities, with an Alvia train journey taking seven and a half hours. The other option involves a transfer.

Thus, one would depart Alicante at 16:05 on an AVE train, arriving in Madrid at 18:38 and needing to transfer to an Alvia, which passes through Valladolid, Palencia, Aguilar de Campo, Reinosa, and Torrelavega before reaching Santander at 23:28.

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todoalicante Alicante-Elche Airport Loses Flights to Santander