| Nativename: | Aeropuerto Seve Ballesteros - Santander |
| Location: | Maliaño, Camargo, Cantabria, Spain |
| Elevation-M: | 5 |
| Pushpin Label: | SDR |
| R1-Length-F: | 7,939 |
| R1-Surface: | Asphalt |
| Santander Airport | |
| Image2-Width: | 250 |
| Iata: | SDR |
| Icao: | LEXJ |
| Type: | Public |
| Owner-Oper: | Aena |
| Elevation-F: | 16 |
| Website: | aena-aeropuertos.es |
| Pushpin Map: | Spain Cantabria#Spain |
| Pushpin Map Caption: | Location of airport in Cantabria |
| R1-Number: | 11/29 |
| R1-Length-M: | 2,420 |
| Stat-Year: | 2019 |
| Stat1-Header: | Passengers |
| Stat1-Data: | 1,174,896 |
| Stat2-Header: | Passenger change 18-19 |
| Stat2-Data: | 6.5% |
| Stat3-Header: | Movements |
| Stat3-Data: | 11,236 |
| Stat4-Header: | Movements change 18-19 |
| Stat4-Data: | 0.2% |
| Footnotes: | Sources: Passenger Traffic, AENA[1] Spanish AIP, AENA |
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.
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.
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.[2]
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 (from April 1974 until 8 August 1977), 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.[3]
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 (national and international), 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.[4]
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.[5]
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.[6]
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.[7]
The following airlines operate regular scheduled and charter flights at Santander Airport:
ImageSize = width:550 height:350PlotArea = left:50 bottom:50 top:30 right:30DateFormat = x.yPeriod = from:0 till:1200TimeAxis = orientation:verticalAlignBars = justifyScaleMajor = gridcolor:darkgrey increment:100 start:0ScaleMinor = gridcolor:lightgrey increment:20 start:0BackgroundColors = canvas:sfondo
BarData= bar:2000 text:2000 bar:2001 text:2001 bar:2002 text:2002 bar:2003 text:2003 bar:2004 text:2004 bar:2005 text:2005 bar:2006 text:2006 bar:2007 text:2007 bar:2008 text:2008 bar:2009 text:2009 bar:2010 text:2010 bar:2011 text:2011 bar:2012 text:2012 bar:2013 text:2013 bar:2014 text:2014 bar:2015 text:2015 bar:2016 text:2016 bar:2017 text:2017 bar:2018 text:2018 bar:2019 text:2019 bar:2020 text:2020
PlotData= color:barra width:20 align:center
bar:2000 from:0 till: 261 bar:2001 from:0 till: 272 bar:2002 from:0 till: 262 bar:2003 from:0 till: 254 bar:2004 from:0 till: 343 bar:2005 from:0 till: 645 bar:2006 from:0 till: 649 bar:2007 from:0 till: 762 bar:2008 from:0 till: 857 bar:2009 from:0 till: 958 bar:2010 from:0 till: 918
PlotData= color:barra2 width:20 align:center 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 bar:2018 from:0 till: 1103 bar:2019 from:0 till: 1175 bar:2020 from:0 till: 335
TextData= fontsize:S pos:(20,20) text:Evolution in the number of passengers since 2000 (in thousands of passengers). Green since enlargement. Source AENA - Development Graphics by Wikipedia
Traffic per year[8]
| 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 260,767 (+16.1%) 29th | 272,383 (+4.5%) 28th | 262,070 (-3.8%) 29th | 253,756 (-3.2%) 29th | 342,559 (+35.0%) 28th | 644,662 (+88.1%) 27th | 649,447 (+0.7%) 27th | 761,780 (+17.3%) 27th | 856,606 (+12.4%) 27th | 958,157 (+11.9%) 26th | 918,470 (-4.1%) 26th |
| 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | ||
| 1,116,398 (+21.4%) 21st | 1,117,617 (+0.1%) 20th | 974,043 (-12.8%) 20th | 815,636 (-16.3%) 23rd | 875,920 (+7.4%) 22nd | 778.318 (-11,1%) 26th | 937.641 (+20,5%) 26th | 1,103,353 (+17.7%) 25th | 1,174,896 (+6.5%) 22nd |
| Rank | Destination | Passengers | Change 2022 / 23 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | London-Stansted | 83,122 | 14% | |
| 2 | Rome-Fiumicino | 67,273 | 13% | |
| 3 | Charleroi | 67,105 | 7% | |
| 4 | Dublin | 48,952 | 50% | |
| 5 | Edinburgh | 40,133 | 33% | |
| 6 | Bucharest-Otopeni | 35,427 | 28% | |
| 7 | Vienna | 34,429 | 14% | |
| 8 | Marrakech | 34,340 | 26% | |
| 9 | Bergamo | 33,399 | 4% | |
| 10 | Manchester | 32,258 | 2% | |
| 11 | Birmingham | 29,115 | 580% | |
| 12 | Beauvais | 28,260 | 5% | |
| 13 | Treviso | 24,197 | New route | |
| 14 | Bologna | 17,843 | 30% | |
| 15 | Venice | 7,768 | 70% | |
| Source: Estadísticas de tráfico aereo[9] | ||||
| Rank | Destination | Passengers | Change 2022 / 23 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Madrid | 220,289 | 15% | |
| 2 | Barcelona | 2,037,990 | 7% | |
| 3 | Seville | 61,524 | 94% | |
| 4 | Málaga | 53,604 | 30% | |
| 5 | Valencia | 51,685 | 17% | |
| 6 | Palma de Mallorca | 28,125 | 41% | |
| 7 | Gran Canaria | 22,659 | 15% | |
| 8 | Alicante | 19,200 | 154% | |
| 9 | Tenerife-North | 17,783 | 9% | |
| 10 | Murcia | 9,701 | 17% | |
| 11 | Ibiza | 4,835 | 1% | |
| 12 | Menorca | 4,797 | 1% | |
| 13 | Jerez de la Frontera | 1,590 | 17% | |
| 14 | Granada | 1,510 | 4% | |
| 15 | Vigo | 1,268 | 12% | |
| Source: Estadísticas de tráfico aereo | ||||
The road access by car is from the S-10 highway, exit 3 and then taking the road N-636 that leads to the airport facilities. There is also a regular bus line from Santander's main bus station in the city centre. The line buses from ALSA also stop in the airport prior booking in the routes that connect Santander with other towns in northern Spain like Bilbao, Gijón, Oviedo or Laredo.[10] [11]