El Matorral Airport
Encyclopedia
Fuerteventura Airport also known as El Matorral Airport serves the Spanish island of Fuerteventura
Fuerteventura
Fuerteventura , a Spanish island, is one of the Canary Islands, in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Africa. It is situated at 28°20' north, 14°00' west. At 1,660 km² it is the second largest of the Canary Islands, after Tenerife...

 and is situated in El Matorral site, 5 km (3.1 mi) southwest of the capital city Puerto del Rosario
Puerto del Rosario
Puerto del Rosario is a Canarian municipality in the northern portion of the island of Fuerteventura in the Las Palmas province in the Canary Islands. Puerto del Rosario is also the capital of the island of Fuerteventura since 1835. The population is 28,357 , with a density of 39.43/km² which is...

. It was built in the mid-1960s with the arrival of tourism.

Ryanair pullout

On 10 December 2008, Ryanair
Ryanair
Ryanair is an Irish low-cost airline. Its head office is at Dublin Airport and its primary operational bases at Dublin Airport and London Stansted Airport....

 announced that it would close all of its routes to Fuerteventura on 31 January 2009. Ryanair
Ryanair
Ryanair is an Irish low-cost airline. Its head office is at Dublin Airport and its primary operational bases at Dublin Airport and London Stansted Airport....

 formerly operated services to/from Birmingham (3 per week), Bremen (2pw), Dublin (2pw), Weeze (4pw), East Midlands (3pw), Frankfurt (2pw), Liverpool (3pw), London-Stansted (3pw) and Shannon (1pw). The airline stated that the reason for the closure was due to a row with a local tourism consortium AIE whom they claim did not honour a financial contribution agreement with the airline. Ryanair claims that they do not properly promote the island as a tourist destination. Ryanair's Michael Cawley confirmed the pull-out and said the loss of 250,000 passengers annually was a 'black day' for Fuerteventura Ryanair keeps its costs low by requiring small airports, usually publicly owned, to agree to spend millions of pounds advertising its routes in return for commitments by the airline to deliver a certain volume of passengers. These agreements have prompted several complaints to the European Commission from airlines that have argued they were not offered the same terms.

Following this disagreement, Ryanair have since agreed new terms with the Canary Islands government on a scheme to serve the islands until at least 2012, therefore adding Fuerteventura back onto the Ryanair network. All of the Ryanair routes that were lost due to the closure have now been re-introduced except Birmingham, Bremen and Shannon. However, Birmingham, Bremen and Shannon are due to commence once again. When Ryanair re-commenced Fuerteventura flights, the majority of routes that were re-introduced now fly less frequently however there were only 9 routes served from Fuerteventura before the closue, now there's 16 meaning Ryanair operates more flights from the Fuerteventura than ever before. Despite this, Fuerteventura is flown to significantly less than Gran Canaria, Lanzarote and Tenerife-South by Ryanair.

Destinations from Fuerteventura Airport:

Statistics

EWLINE
Passengers Operations Cargo (tonnes)
2000 3,467,614 31,663 4,487
2001 3,577,638 30,471 3,837
2002 3,620,576 32,520 3,712
2003 3,919,224 39,695 3,694
2004 3,917,109 39,865 3,639
2005 4,071,875 40,415 3,178
2006 4,458,711 44,044 3,196
2007 4,629,877 44,870 3,127
2008 4,492,003 44,552 2,722
2009 3,738,492 36,429 1,913
2010 4,173,686 39,437 1,710
Source: Aena Statistics
Aena
Aeropuertos Españoles y Navegación Aérea , literally "Spanish Airports and Air Navigation", is the Spanish public body that owns and operates the majority of airports in Spain, with the exceptions of the private owned Ciudad Reals and Lleida-Alguaire Airport. Aena is also responsible for Air...



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