Airport ‘a different ballgame’ after catchment area expands to 4m

The Minister for Tourism, Christian Santos, said Gibraltar has had interest from airlines over potential new routes from Spain, France, Holland and other European destinations, with new flights expected to emerge as from summer 2027.

Mr Santos said the treaty has fundamentally changed the potential catchment area for Joshua Hassan Gibraltar International Airport, from the local population of 38,000 to 4 million people.

“It's a different ballgame now,” Mr Santos said.

“Gibraltar is not just a destination, but also an airport hub for an area.”

Gibraltar was now the closest airport for people within a 35-kilometre catchment area, while between 35 and 60 kilometres it shares the market with Malaga Airport.

Mr Santos said the Gibraltar Government had adopted a two-tier strategy since the airport agreement was announced, focusing separately on promoting Gibraltar as a destination and promoting the airport as a hub for the wider area.

The previous catchment area had been limited to around 38,000 people, although Mr Santos noted that people had travelled through the frontier to use Gibraltar Airport.

He said the potential catchment area was now much larger due to the free flow at the border and the treaty has also opened the airport to new European destinations.

The Gibraltar Government is now marketing the airport to people in the surrounding area, encouraging them to use Gibraltar to access existing flights.

The strategy also involves attracting international travellers to use Gibraltar Airport to reach the surrounding region.

Mr Santos said the Government was also speaking to airlines about additional routes, with the UK market already cover and a focus being placed on potential European destinations.

The Government had conducted a catchment study looking at markets and the level of interest in destinations already served from nearby airports.

“We have an analysis of the flights on offer in nearby airports,” Mr Santos said.

“From there, we see how many flights they accommodate, how many passengers get to fly, how many of those passengers live within our catchment area, what the interest and appetite is within the whole area.”

“Those numbers show us what the interest is.”

Mr Santos said that data was then being presented to airlines as part of discussions over potential new routes.

He said the process of securing new services generally takes between 12 and 18 months, meaning new flights were unlikely to appear before summer 2027 as existing airline schedules and destinations had already been announced.

“There won't really be seeing new flights until next year, probably summer 2027, because all the other flights and destinations are already announced.”

Mr Santos said there was interest from destinations in Spain and France, as well as Holland, while stressing that decisions would ultimately depend on the commercial viability of individual routes.

He added that it will be the airlines who will decide what is commercially viable for them.

The expansion of the airport's potential market would also have to take account of its physical limitations, including the length of its runway.

Mr Santos said the airport would have to make the best use of the runway available and is limited in terms of the size of aircraft able to operate from Gibraltar.

He said the issue would be managed through scheduling and available slots, with the airport only offering services it could accommodate.

He also cautioned that growth would be gradual rather than involving a sudden increase in traffic.

“We can't have hundreds of flights,” he said.

“We can have tens during the day, and it will start slowly. It's not going to be a surge of an additional hundreds of flights.”

“It will be slow and steady. Slow and steady wins the race.”

Mr Santos said the tourism strategy was also aimed at ensuring that increased air connectivity translated into more visitors staying in Gibraltar.

He said the current split was roughly 50/50 between visitors who stayed in Gibraltar and those who crossed the frontier, adding that the aim would be to maintain a similar balance as visitor numbers increased.

The Government was also seeing interest from new hotels, which Mr Santos said wanted to become part of Gibraltar's tourism offering.

He said the number of nights visitors stayed in Gibraltar had already increased over the past year and that more flights could contribute to further growth in overnight stays.

Mr Santos also expects further air connectivity to support business travel, which he said had increased since the Covid-19 pandemic.

In his view, Gibraltar also needs to cater for visitors arriving by land across the frontier, with day trips remaining an important part of the tourism model because of the Rock's limited number of hotel beds.

He said Gibraltar had a wide range of attractions that could be visited by day trippers, including those crossing the frontier and cruise passengers.

“We can't limit ourselves just to day trippers or just to overnight stays because we're limited on [space],” he said.

“We have a nature reserve as well, so we're limited on the numbers we can have up at the rock in order to continue to operate as a nature reserve.”

He pointed out how the Government is investing in attractions outside the Upper Rock Nature Reserve, including the Northern Defences, Moorish Castle and World War Two Tunnels, while investment had also taken place in the south around the Ape's Den and the new Butterfly Farm.

Mr Santos said the aim was also to encourage visitors to spend time in Main Street, with entertainment, gastronomy and other initiatives being used to support local traders.

The Government has been working with restaurants, the GFSB and the Chamber on ways to strengthen the tourism offering.

Mr Santos highlighted an increase in those walking to Upper Rock Nature Reserve and that the shuttle service has also proved more popular than expected, with the Government purchasing another bus to increase capacity.

“We're trying to make the tourism product more holistic and looking at it from all different angles and how we can cater for every individual tourist that comes to Gibraltar,” he said.