Corvera Murcia Airport will be included in a Climate Change Strategy being developed by Aena “to minimise the effect of air transport on the planet”.
Announcing the initiative, the Spanish airport authority stressed that, while air transport was a key source of wealth, minimising its effect on the environment was also vital. Hence its development of the strategy.
A report in El País newspaper outlined details of the strategic plan. “Air travel not only enriches us by connecting us with other parts of the world, but it also represents major capital importance in the global economy. In Spain alone, tourism accounts for 11 per cent of national GDP. However, these social and economic benefits must also be compatible with one of the most important challenges today: the fight against climate change.”
Aena’s Climate Change Strategy incorporates measures aimed at enhancing decarbonisation and energy sustainability at its airports (just under 50 in Spain, including Corvera Murcia, Alicante-Elche and Málaga-Costa del Sol). These include an ongoing commitment to its Photovoltaic Plan, which focuses on renewable energy and generates 70 per cent of photovoltaic energy for self-supply.
Another measure is active participation in the ACI Airport Carbon Accreditation program, in which eight Aena airports (covering more than 70 per cent of passengers in the network) evaluate their efforts in the management and reduction of CO2 emissions. The goal is to reach level 3+ of this program at Spain’s two main airports, Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas and and Josep Tarradellas Barcelona-El Prat, obtaining carbon neutrality by 2030.
As part of the NetZero2050 initiative at the 29th edition of the Annual Congress of ACI Europe, Aena joined other European airports in the challenge of reaching zero carbon emissions at its airports by 2050.
- Concrete measures involve:
- Production of renewable energy at the airports’ own facilities.
- Purchase of 100 per cent renewable energy.
- Use of eco vehicles
- Incorporation of energy-efficiency options
- Recharging points for electric vehicles
- 400hz power supply for parked aircraft
- Boosting the use of biofuel by airlines
Latest Passenger Figures
Aena has also just released its monthly report for September. Corvera Murcia Airport registered a total of 904,828 travellers in the first nine months of the year. This figure rose to 926,387 when the 21,559 travellers managed by Murcia-San Javier Airport in the first 14 days of the year (i.e. before Corvera Murcia Airport was commissioned on 15 January) were added.
As for aircraft movements, in the first nine months of the year 6,444 landing and take-off operations were registered at Corvera Murcia Airport, plus 222 at Murcia-San Javier in January – for a total of 6,666 operations in the Murcia region.
During September, a total of 130,535 passengers used the facilities at Corvera Murcia Airport, and 898 landing and take-off operations were managed.
