Santander Airport
Santander Airport, officially Seve Ballesteros–Santander Airport, is an international airport near Santander, Spain and the only airport in Cantabria. In 2018 the airport handled 1,103,353 passengers and 11,258 flights, far more than in 1995 when it handled only 180,000 passengers. Since then, the traffic has declined following the trend in Spanish airports and the decrease in operations by some of the companies.
Runway
The airport has a single runway, runway 11/29, with a length of 2,420 m / 7,612 ft. Runway 29 ends about 20 meters next to the Bay of Santander and runway 11 ends about 150 meters from the highway S-10 and a shopping center. Since 2021, there is a precision approach lighting system at runway 29.Name
The airport is named after the famous golf player Seve Ballesteros, born in Pedreña, a few kilometres from the airport and being one of the most well known public figures of Cantabria in the last century. The airport was known as 'Santander Airport' until 2015. In May 2014, a popular initiative taken to the Parliament of Cantabria was unanimously approved to change the name after Ballesteros. The Spanish government approved the change on 16 April 2015.History
Foundation and early years
The current airport, built on ground reclaimed from the Bay of Santander, was opened to traffic in 1977. A smaller airfield was built on the location between 1947 and 1952 by prisoners of the Spanish Civil War. It opened in 1953, replacing the old Santander airport located in La Albericia, which received commercial flights since 1949, and received the name of Aeropuerto de Santander and popularly known as "Parayas". It received the international rating in 1957.After a three-year closure, in which the airport underwent a major renovation that significantly expanded its facilities and had a cost of more than 1,100 million pesetas of the time; it was reopened with a new 2,400 m runway and with the technology to allow both visual and instrumental flight; the first flight after the renovation corresponded to the Iberia's DC-9 "Ciudad de Santander", that covered the Barcelona-Santander-Santiago de Compostela route.
Development since 2000
Until 2003, the premises were considered underused due to the limited number of flights and their high fees, which made a shift in potential passengers to the airport of Bilbao, 100 km away. From this date, following an agreement signed between the Government of Cantabria and the budget airline Ryanair, the airport experimented an increase in the number of destinations, passengers and airlines operating. In 2005, the airport reached 644,662 passengers, growing by 88% over the previous year and having a user balance between domestic and international flights. This increase was the largest proportion of all airports in Spain in that year.From 2007, there have been new renovation works, that started in 2007, remodeling and expanding the terminal and installing two gateways or fingers for direct access to the planes, widening the platform for parking more aircraft or construction of taxiways and a platform for general aviation.
In December 2010, 37.8 million euro was invested for the upgrading of the facilities, preparing the airport to handle an annual traffic of over two million passengers a year. The works included the remodeling of the terminal building of 10,200 square meters, expanding new areas of departures and arrivals as well as the construction of a taxiway that can handle 22 movements per hour, and the extension of the aircraft parking platform.
Facilities
After the implementation of the renovations referred to in the airport master plan, today it has 8 check-in desks, 3 baggage carousels in the arrivals lounge and 7 boarding gates. As an international airport, it is also capable of handling flights from countries outside the Schengen zone.Airlines and destinations
The following airlines operate regular scheduled and charter flights at Santander Airport:Statistics
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bar:2001 from:0 till: 272
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bar:2004 from:0 till: 343
bar:2005 from:0 till: 645
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bar:2007 from:0 till: 762
bar:2008 from:0 till: 857
bar:2009 from:0 till: 958
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bar:2011 from:0 till: 1116
bar:2012 from:0 till: 1118
bar:2013 from:0 till: 974
bar:2014 from:0 till: 815
bar:2015 from:0 till: 876
bar:2016 from:0 till: 778
bar:2017 from:0 till: 936
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text:Evolution in the number of passengers since 2000. Green since enlargement. Source AENA - Development Graphics by Wikipedia
Traffic per year
| 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 |
| 260,767 29th | 272,383 28th | 262,070 29th | 253,756 29th | 342,559 28th | 644,662 27th | 649,447 27th | 761,780 27th | 856,606 27th | 958,157 26th | 918,470 26th |
| 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | - | - |
| 1,116,398 21st | 1,117,617 20th | 974,043 20th | 815,636 23rd | 875,920 22nd | 778.318 26th | 937.641 26th | 1,103,353 25th | 1,174,896 22nd | - | - |