A group of businessmen are forming a new airline, Andalus Líneas Aéreas, with the aim of offering cheap, direct flights to the Caribbean by December, and later open up the offerings to popular demand, most likely destinations in South/Central America and Morocco. Several of these venture capitalists were executives in the former Air Madrid airline which – according to the new company’s headman Fernando Guerrero – failed because it was overtaken by a company with no experience in the sector. He stresses that this new airline is the first truly Andalusian airline, since they will be based out of the Malaga Airport and acting in the interest of Andalusians. He says Andalus aims to become "the airline that meets the mobility needs of every Andalucian, who can fly to major tourist destinations virtually from their doorstep," without having to go through larger cities like Madrid and Barcelona.

Andalus officially presented their business venture to the public on May 30 at EUROAL 2008, an international tourism convention held in Torremolinos. They have invested 12 million Euros (9.5 million pounds) in this multi-phase endeavour, and will start with a staff of 97 employees, 2 short/medium-range planes and 1 long-range plane.

An update to my last post: along with the closing of both main downtown Malaga stations, the schedule is shifting a bit as well. Be prepared to hop your normal train about 10 minutes ahead of schedule, since at least for the endpoints of the C1 line this is the supposed difference in schedule. But don’t get your hopes up yet of an actual improvement in the train frequency – for now the trains will still only come by every 30 minutes. The Minister of Public Works declared back in 2005 that we would be seeing trains every 20 minutes once the stretch between Benalmadena and Fuengirola was widened, but that still only remains a possibility by the end of this year. (The reason: they say new houses are in the way of this happening, houses that weren’t shown in the original expansion plans.) Compare this to more streamlined timetables such as in Barcelona, Madrid, Seville and San Sebastian, where they hone down the frequency to as low as 5 and 10 minutes at peak times.

The next big change will probably come with the completion of the airport reforms, projected for 2010. This will include a new train station actually located below the new passenger terminal in the Malaga airport, allowing passengers to connect directly from their flight to the AVE (long-range) or Cercanias (regional) trains. The rerouted C1 line of Cercanias will go under the new runway, and rejoin its original route further on. By this time it’s expected that this line will run every 15 minutes or even less, accommodating business travellers like myself and surely making tourists’ lives easier!

Don’t think the Spanish airline execs didn’t pay attention in economy class. If they were dozing off, they were dreaming of ways to beat out the competition, and still are. With Iberia’s announcement of a new business-class offering for Malaga-Madrid, we can say they’re recognizing AVE’s success in the new high-speed train on this same route. Or we can say they’re just offering a new product for the benefit of the common good, but hey – we would only be putting blinders on, since informed travellers are well aware of the options and many have chosen the AVE lately.

Iberia seems to be targeting the work world with this new fare class, available for 125.37 € (~96 £) for a one-way trip, and a reduced round-trip of 226.74 € (~174 £). They claim these kinds of tickets will be available for purchase from their website (iberia.com) even on the day of the flight, making it simple for workers with quickly-changing agendas to keep up. Compare these with Renfe’s AVE one-way tickets, which float around 115 € and 135 € for their business (preferente) and first class (club) tickets, respectively.

Of course Iberia and Renfe both have economy-class tickets for this trajectory, as low as 32 € and 68 € for one-way trips. I couldn’t find any that low on Iberia’s site, but surely it has much to do with hi/lo seasons, something which doesn’t seem to affect the train system nearly as much.

Did we think taxis might escape rising prices in the transport realm? Well, taxi rates are going up just like everything else. Of course that’s something almost expected nowadays to happen once a year. However, Malaga’s taxi companies aren’t just raising fees; they’ve also changed the pricing structure, eliminating a special category for weekends. Instead they’ve added a surcharge of 2 Euros across the board for late-night/early-morning trips (between 00:00 and 07:00), making these trips a minimum of 6 Euros now. Other notable increases are in the airport trip minimums and surcharges, which are summarized in these tables.

These changes take effect today, in time to capture the massive flow of tourists coming in at the start of Spain’s high season: Semana Santa, Easter’s Holy Week. Having said that, you can see how complicated the fees are, and not to mention the mess you can get into of cab drivers not accepting certain travellers. We don’t like surprises any more than you do when it comes to the bottom line or doggedly searching for a willing driver after arriving from a long journey. Give Cheap Car Hire Malaga a chance; we think you’ll enjoy the first-rate services at rock-bottom prices.

Francisco de la Torre has gone on record claiming that the arrival of the high-speed AVE train to Malaga will not have a negative impact on the Malaga airport. There has been conjecture about just this, no doubt some based on the case of Seville’s airfield, which suffered a crisis in 1992 when the AVE arrived there. Their number of passengers stagnated and growth slowed to a crawl compared to other Andalucian airports.

On the contrary, says Mayor de la Torre. He maintains that it may actually strengthen the airport’s traffic, since the new connections in nearby Antequera and Puente Genil (Cordoba) will bring people wanting to catch a flight at the airport. He’s got a point - not all traffic through the airport is national; international flights and hops over to the islands represent a great percentage as well. This seems to be one of those wait-and-see situations: while people get used to using the trains, look for "special deals" on flights within Spain in the upcoming weeks and months.

Trains, trains… with the new high-speed AVE and Avant links in Barcelona and Sevilla, word about them has been around the mill a lot recently. But this tidbit is about Malaga’s regional train, Cercanías, which currently runs between Malaga centre and Fuengirola. Plans have been unveiled for expansion of this line to reach Estepona, with the new stretch stopping in hotspots like Marbella and 13 others along the Costa del Sol. The project is a joint planning effort between the Andalucian and national government, and has a completion date set at 2011. It will be presented in multiple stages, with several groups performing the engineering studies and construction. Included in the challenges are a 4 km, twin-track underground tunnel between Las Lagunas and La Cala de Mijas (Fuengirola area), and making the existing tracks compatible with high-performance engines reaching top speeds of 200 km/h. This last task has caused a split in logistics and two possible options:

1. Improvement of the existing line, including widening of the track beds and allowing for simultaneous Cercanías and mid- to long-range traffic. This has been the more popular option so far.
2. Construction of a completely new stretch between Malaga and Fuengirola. This would share part of the Cordoba high-speed line, cross through the Malaga airport, and go through Sierra de Mijas to meet with the remainder of the Fuengirola-Estepona track. To this end, Aena has even reserved a tunnel for this hypothetical section under the airport in its expansion plans for the new runway and terminal.

Nowadays if you visit Malaga airport you will see a ton of roads being repaired. They are also building new terminals and will soon start the new runway.

We took some photos from the airport: the first pic shows the new parking building and the second one shows the repair works visible from the Renfe train station at Malaga airport.

In case you are returning from your holidays we recommend allowing extra time because there is a lot of traffic every morning at the airport, and this will affect delivering your Malaga car hire. Check so as not to forget anything important in the rental car or place you’re staying.

Here you can see a short video of the Malaga Airport runway taken from the terminal:

Malaga Airport will have a new runway and terminal in the next few years, so they will be able to duplicate the incoming and outgoing flights and provide better cargo services.