Malaga airport reaches historic highs – Costa del Sol has not peaked yet

Malaga Airport is the busiest airport in the world. This July saw 2,866.642 passengers, 19,814 flight operations and an increase year-on-year of 7.8 and 7.7 percent, respectively, over July 2024. 

It has grown faster than all major Spanish transport infrastructures, including Barcelona-El Prat (2.9%) and Madrid Barajas (0.6%).

Malaga Airport is on a growth trajectory after a record 2024, when it handled almost 25 million passengers. To accommodate this growth, a €1.5 billion expansion project is already underway to increase the airport’s capacity to 36 million passengers annually, with the Spanish Minister of Transport, Óscar Puente, already having pledged the investment of the central government.

Malaga airport continues to grow faster than other transport hubs

In July, there were 2,864,665 commercial flights, of which 478 814 were on domestic routes (+11.9%) and 2,385,851 were on international (+7.3%) routes. Internationally, the UK topped with 676 296 passengers. Germany was second (204 219), then followed by the Netherlands (162,377) France (160 610), Ireland (139 482), and Italy (13 5882). 19470 of the total 19,814 flights were commercial. Of these, 4,038 were domestic flights (up by 12.7%) while 15,432 were international (up by 7.2%). On July 13, there were 689 record flight movements and on July 27, there were 98,949 passenger.

Malaga Airport is expected to handle 15,261,324 passenger and 107 248 flights between January and July 2025. Commercial flights carried 15,236,094 passenger, including 2,545,075 passengers from domestic flight, and 105,309 commercial flights.

The growth of this airport is unprecedented and reveals the importance it plays in Spain’s aerospace industry. Infrastructure investment will be needed to keep up with demand. It’s only a matter of time before interior mobility is sorted so that passengers arriving in Malaga don’t become stuck in traffic.