The history of the Alicante Airport begins in 1919 with the search of some land to build an aerodrome that served as a stopover to the Airlines Latécoère of French nationality. The general director of this company chose municipal lands near San Vicente del Raspeig and, in this way, would be born the field of flight of Rabassa.

This installation would welcome one of the first commercial flights in Spain, inaugurating the regular Alicante-Oran line. During the civil war, this airfield became the Aerodrome of Rabassa, which was responsible for the air defense of the port of Alicante, joining in 1939 at the air base of the Levante Air Region.

Thus grew the Airport of Alicante-Elche

A long time after, this installation was losing aeronautical activity, reason why the City council of Alicante presented in 1956 a project of renovation of Aerodrome of Rabassa that served the needs of air transport to the city and its neighbors.

Due to the numerous difficulties presented by the project (demolition of a parish church, limitation of height of buildings, etc.) the Rabassa reform was discarded and it was proposed in 1960 to establish the Alicante airport in El Altet.

Finally, the new airport of El Altet would open to traffic on May 4, 1967, with the capacity to serve one million passengers. This figure was exceeded 4 years later, which forced the construction of a new terminal in 1972 to serve international flights, incorporating domestic flights three years later.

Since then, the number of passengers at the Alicante-Elche airport has had a continued growth until reaching three million passengers in 1988, so it became necessary to expand some endowments such as aircraft parking and the runway. In 1996, this airport already served nine million passengers.

That is why we had to build new and modern infrastructures, as well as offices, operations center, business area and a control tower. The constant increase of passengers caused the construction of a second terminal that would provisionally assist passengers while planning the New Terminal Area (NAT) whose works would begin in 2007.

It will be the architect Bruce Fairbanks who will be in charge of designing this new Terminal, which will allow an improvement and expansion of the facilities. Likewise, the Ministry of Public Works will start this year the improvement of access to the Alicante Airport that would inaugurate its new terminal in 2011.

What does it offer?

With the entry into service of NAT, El Altet Airport has 148 check-in desks, 42 boarding gates, 21 catwalks, 25 luggage collection tapes, 12 restaurant service points and 19 shops. In addition, it has a VIP room with catering, press, TV, telephone, fax, free Wi-Fi and meeting areas.

They have a very extensive offer of transportation to and from the airport. Different urban bus routes from Alicante and Elche and interurban (Benidorm, Murcia, Santa Pola, Torrevieja) can transfer passengers to the main tourist destinations in the area. Also, the TRAM of Alicante connects the airport with Benidorm, Sant Vicent del Raspeig, El Campello or Playa de San Juan.

 

Finally, if you decide on the road transport, it should be noted that there is a Parking with very competitive prices at only 800 meters of the terminal. You can park there and be shuttled quickly to the terminal´s door, so you have to walk less than parking at the AENA parking and you can also avoid this way AENA´s uncompetitive prices.