Fuerteventura Airport , also known as El Matorral Airport, is an airport serving the Spanish island of

Fuerteventura Fuerteventura () is one of the Canary Islands, in the Atlantic Ocean, part of the North Africa region, and politically part of Spain. It is located away from the northwestern coast of Africa. The island was declared a biosphere reserve by UNE ...

. It is situated in El Matorral, southwest of the capital city

Puerto del Rosario Puerto del Rosario () is a town and a municipality in the eastern part of the island of Fuerteventura in the Las Palmas province in the Canary Islands. It has been the capital of Fuerteventura since 1860. The town's population is 29,160 (2013),

. The airport has flight connections to over 80 destinations worldwide, and over 5.6 million passengers passed through it in 2016. The airport has one terminal building with two floors. The ground floor has two sections; one section is for flight arrivals and the other for flight departures. The first floor has the departures lounge and 24 boarding gates. In total, the terminal covers over 92,000 m² and it has the capacity to handle 8.2 million passengers per year.

History

Early years

The airport was opened officially on 14 September 1969. The first plane to touch down on the new runway was an

Iberia The Iberian Peninsula (), ** * Aragonese language, Aragonese and Occitan language, Occitan: ''Peninsula Iberica'' ** ** * french: Péninsule Ibérique * mwl, Península Eibérica * eu, Iberiar penintsula also known as Iberia, is a pe ...

Fokker F27, which flew the route

Gran Canaria Gran Canaria (, ; ), also Grand Canary Island, is the third-largest and second-most-populous island of the Canary Islands, an archipelago off the Atlantic coast of Northwest Africa which is part of Spain. the island had a population of that ...

Lanzarote Lanzarote (, , ) is a Spanish island, the easternmost of the Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean. It is located approximately off the north coast of Africa and from the Iberian Peninsula. Covering , Lanzarote is the fourth-largest of the i ...

. In 1973, El Matorral Airport began to operate its first flights to European countries with the airline

Condor Condor is the common name for two species of New World vultures, each in a monotypic genus. The name derives from the Quechua ''kuntur''. They are the largest flying land birds in the Western Hemisphere. They are: * The Andean condor (''Vu ...

, which linked the German city of

Düsseldorf Düsseldorf ( , , ; often in English sources; Low Franconian and Ripuarian: ''Düsseldörp'' ; archaic nl, Dusseldorp ) is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in ...

directly with

. In the following years, the airport experienced considerable growth in the number of operations, which resulted in a series of improvements, starting in 1978, to ensure that the working of the aerodrome continued to meet the needs of the passengers.

Development since the 1990s

In 1994, construction started on a new terminal building, an aircraft apron, a taxiway parallel to the runway, a power plant and a new access road. The works were completed with the extension of the car park and a detour on the Puerto de Rosario-Matorral, road adding some two kilometres, of which 1.5 are double lane. With the new facilities it was possible to attend around five million passengers a year and manage around 3,100 passengers per hour during rush-hour periods.

Airlines and destinations

Puerto del Rosario - airport - bus 04 ies

Puerto del Rosario - airport - tower 02 ies

The following airlines operate regular scheduled and charter flights at Fuerteventura Airport:

Statistics

References

External links

Official website
{{authority control Airports in the Canary Islands Buildings and structures in Fuerteventura Airports established in 1969