Málaga continues to grow as a tourist destination. After the pandemic, the airport broke all historical records of travellers, flights and even checked luggage in 2023. This development reflects the increasing competitiveness of the province compared to major international destinations.
The success is underlined by the addition of twelve new routes for the summer season starting in April.
Ryanair is leading the expansion
The largest contribution to Málaga-Costa del Sol airport again comes from Ryanair. The Irish multinational announced the launch of five new routes a few weeks ago. With these routes, the low-cost company reaches 89 routes from the province of Málaga. This allows the number of passengers to grow by 19% to more than 5.3 million.
This increase is expected to exceed the historical maximums of the past year. At that time, the airport (including all airlines) reached 22.3 million travellers, almost 162,000 flights and a record of 5.5 million checked suitcases. This is evident from data from airport authority Aena.
New destinations and employment
Ryanair’s new destinations from the Costa del Sol are Bari (Italy), Bucharest (Romania), Lodz (Poland), Ostrava and Prague (Czech Republic). To meet the growing demand for flights, the airline will expand its base at Málaga Airport with three new aircraft. This brings the total to 16 Boeing 737s. This creates 90 new jobs for pilots and cabin crew. In total, Ryanair will have almost 4,500 employees, of which more than 10% will be pilots, cabin crew and engineers.
New connection to Tetouan
Another important newcomer in April is the first flight of the Moroccan low-cost airline Air Arabia Maroc to Málaga. This airline has set up a new base in the city of Tetouan. From there it will operate direct flights to just four destinations in the European Union. In addition to the Costa del Sol, these are, Madrid, Barcelona and the Belgian capital Brussels.
New routes from Easyjet
Easyjet will open three new routes connecting the Costa del Sol with the French cities of Nantes and Nice, and with the Greek capital Athens. With these new connections, the company increases its seat offering to 30,000.
Expansion and year-round flights
One of the highlights of the coming summer season is the daily connection to New York by United Airlines. This year it starts on May 2 and lasts until the end of September. Qatar Airways has also announced that its route from Málaga to Doha will be operational all year round. Until now it was only active during the summer season.
