Faro Airport has presented nine new routes for 2016 – a year both the airport and the rest of the Algarve expect will be “record-breaking” for tourism.
Most of them are to France (Paris, Lyon, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Nantes and Marseille) while the others are to Austria (Vienna), the UK (Doncaster) and Germany (Nuremberg).
“We’re going to register record numbers,” Faro Airport boss Alberto Mota Borges told journalists on Monday (April 5).
He explained that more tour operators are looking to the Algarve due to high threat levels in rival destinations such as Turkey, Tunisia and Egypt.
“We have a fundamental asset in the Algarve – security,” Mota Borges said.
Diving into numbers, Faro Airport is expecting a 19% increase in flight traffic with Ryanair and easyJet set to remain the main airlines.
Most flights will come from the UK, though France and Germany are becoming more important markets for the Algarve every year.
Mota Borges admitted though that 2016 will also be a challenging year as the airport is undergoing extensive renovations and expansion work as part of a €24.7 million investment.
But he believes everything will “go smoothly” as the work isn’t expected to affect the departure and arrival of passengers, and “adjustments will be made” if problems arise, he said.
On a closing note, the airport has revealed that some of its new routes have already been launched.
Most of the new flights will be run by easyJet (Lyon, Paris and Toulouse) and Volotea (Bordeaux, Marseille and Nantes), followed by Transavia (Nantes), Niki and Eurowings (Vienna), Flybe (Doncaster) and Airberlin (Nuremberg).
Photo: BRUNO FILIPE PIRES/OPEN MEDIA GROUP
