Alicante Airport

Went to Alicante today to collect relatives over for a 3 week holiday. Parking good and fair price. Arrivals hall terminal one fair but several broken seats in waiting area. Food at snack bar good quality but very expensive we live in Spain and know what is a fair price this wasn´t. Toilets at terminal one arrival dirty smelly no hand drying facilities as dryer broken no soap available no paper towels. Disgusting state and NOT representative at all of Spain. Poor introduction for first time visitors. Those responsible should be ashamed.

Modern and clean airport. However on the airside of the airport cafes prices were expensive with poor quality sandwiches and snacks - a pack of sandwiches with uninteresting filling cost about 5 Euros which is even more than most (low cost airlines) charge. Tax Free (?) shops has reasonable selection of wines cigarettes and other products.

This airport is not the youngest but still handles passengers very efficiently. The connexion to the town is well provided: bus C6 in front of the terminal every 40' at the incredible price of 1€. Semi-fast food restaurants are spread at different locations in the terminal. All in all a pleasant and efficient airport.

Agree with previous rating busy but efficient airport. No immigration checks but quick check-in and security. Only downside is lack of luggage trolley a pain if you've booked a hire car as it can be a long walk.

Used very recently. Upon arrival no problems at all no passport control on duty so straight through to the baggage carousels then well signposted exits. On return a week later another good experience queuing for check-in but lines weren't too long. Nice departure area.

Arrived Alicante 2100 hrs on Friday evening. Off plane & into baggage collection within 10 minutes. No passport control booths were empty. Looking forward to using again.

When you arrive at the airport there are usually long queues depending on the time of year you go. These however do shorten very quickly but the two lanes that they have for each destination get confusing because sometimes the queues bend around. The airport is always clean and pleasant and there is enough room to move around easily while shopping and plenty of seats. The only bad points that I can think of are everytime I travel from Alicante airport they allocate the gates that I have to travel through and then at the last minute they change which means everytime everybody runs to their correct gate. This is also very annoying when you havent got allocated seats when flying with certain budget airlines because everybody races and pushes each other. Another bad point is that when you fly from gate one you think that you can go straight onto the plane and you are the first in the queue but then you have to walk into another room wait for somebody to come and then get onto a bus to get to your plane. This is similar to the 'gate situation' in that if you haven't got allocated seats everybody is pushing each other to get to the front. This isn't fair on the families with young children who are called first so that they have priority to sit by each other by having everybody wait in a room first allows anybody to push in.

We arrived from Stansted and were very impressed. Saturday is a busy day at ALC and we parked on a remote stand but the steps and buses arrived in a flash. The immigration hall is bit bizarre as one enters at right angles to the point of exit. There was a substantial Italian style queue but it dispersed steadily even with only one immigration officer. The baggage hall was well organised. One snag with our car hire and I believe some others is that some of the big names have slightly less obviously named partners at ALC and can be difficult to spot. For the return journey the departure and check in facilities were pleasant cool and airy. Catering has improved markedly and the El Palmeral restaurant is to be recommended landside. We have been using ALC on and off for years and this is an airport which has made the improvements it needed. This is particularly the case with catering and although it could get very busy it is a welcoming airport. See also my comments on Murcia.

Adrian Jay asks about Murcia San Javier. My husband and I have flown into and out of it several times as private pilots and fare paying passengers most recently in November 2005. It is adequate for an airport of its size though the departure hall was chaotic with several flights checking in at once with a shortage of seats and cafe space. The ground staff made no attempt to priority board the aircraft and it became a free for all. Parking is very limited though more is going to be provided. The airport is going to struggle as the Costas become busier with all the new properties south of Cartagena though in a few years' time there will be the new Murcia Airport inland. Of course one can avoid all this by flying in one's own aircraft though the operations staff still take an age to process the departure paperwork!

I like Alicante airport. I agree that the check in can be a little slow and crowded but once through to the departure lounge there are plenty of seats good selection of shops toilets are clean etc. Arrival is OK too but you can wait ages at the car hire desks which can be frustrating. Murcia/San Javier is nearer to Torrevieja but I've no idea what it's like and there very few comments posted - anyone tried Murcia as an alternative ?