| Product: |
Alicante Altet Airport (ALC) |
| Date: |
17/08/02 (470 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: Easy to find your way around, Close to Alicante
Disadvantages: None really
Altet International Airport is situated ten kilometres inland from the city of Alicante and is the national and international airport for visitors to and from the Costa Blanca on mainland Spain.
Most British tourists arriving at Altet airport will be on route to Benidorm and the airport car park often resembles a coach terminal with an abundance of luxury coaches waiting to make the hours drive north along the coast to the high rise hotels of Benidorm.
The airport itself is not one of the largest I have visited with only one terminal and a comparatively small check in lounge for the amount of flights using the airport.
There is an information and help desk permanently open in the check in lounge and a second information and help desk is open in the departure lounge at busy times, which is actually most of the day.
It is not difficult to find your way around the check in lounge and there are numerous information screens displayed around the lounge. Also in the check in lounge there are ATMs, a bureau de change and a post office, which is open Monday to Saturday from 9.30am to 1.30pm as well as a lost property office, a travel agency, a pharmacy and of course public toilets with baby changing facilities.
Once you have checked in you make your way up stairs to the departure lounge where you find a couple of bars and restaurants as well as a fast food outlet. For such a small airport there is a good selection of shops including a newsagents, tobacconists, gift and jewellery shop, a music shop, a cake and confectionary shop, sports shop, shoe shop, CD and video shop as well as three duty free shops.
All of the departure gates are in the one departure lounge so you don’t have to worry about hurrying to the gate after getting you duty frees and again there are an abundance of TV screens giving information about flight departures. Most departure gates have the walk way connected to the aeroplane so you only have
a fairly short walk to the plane from the departure lounge.
Also in departures there is a VIP lounge with facilities for passengers travelling business class to send and receive faxes, do photocopying and access the Internet as well as public telephones throughout the building.
Disabled facilities at the airport include a designated area outside the terminal building for dropping off and collecting disabled passengers and designated parking spaces in the airport car park directly opposite the terminal building. The airport also has lifts, ramps, disabled toilets and wheelchairs are available free of charge on request.
There is only one car park at the airport catering for both long and short stay parking although parking fees vary depending on the length of time you stay. The car park is opposite the terminal building and there are ample luggage trolleys in the car park.
Public transport to and from the airport is quiet good, a bus runs every thirty minutes to and from Alicante central bus station and the journey time is only about twenty minutes and taxis are readily available outside the terminal building, the journey time by taxi to and from Alicante is approximately fifteen minutes depending on traffic and time of day.
There are numerous car hire companies working from the airport, Avis, Hertz, Atesa, Europcar IB, Europa Rent a Car and Sol-Mar Sl all have desks in the arrivals lounge next to the baggage reclaim area.
There are no hotels on the airport complex but Alicante Holiday Inn (telephone number 0034 96 515 6185) is only five kilometres away and one hotel I would strongly recommend is the Polamar (telephone 0034 96 541 3183) at Santa Pola, approximately fifteen kilometres south of the airport and less than twenty minutes drive.
I have often used Altet airport and have found arrivals reclaim to be very efficient however I have reservations about check in, on one occasion while travelling with my
wife and one of the first parties to check in I was asked if I would like a window seat on the plane, I replied yes and when I walked away I discovered I had a window seat and my wife had an aisle seat, we were also at opposite ends of the plane. Since then we always state we would like seats together.
Every time we have travelled from this airport we have heard people complain about not having seats together or being at opposite ends of the plane and on the last occasion the cabin crew on the plane even complained about the amount of passengers who had been split up for no apparent reason. Most people expect to be sitting together if they hand their passports and travel documents over together, unless of course the plane is full, however this does not seem to be the case at Altet airport at times if you do not actually say you want to sit together you might just find your party split all over the plane.
On the whole I have always found Altet airport to be clean and tidy, the meals in the restaurant are well cooked and presented, they are also reasonably priced, as are the drinks. For a small airport most people’s needs are well catered for although I have always been fortunate enough not to have any long delays while flying from Alicante.
Airport telephone number:
From outside of Spain 0034 96 691 9000 or 9100
If phoning from Spain 096 691 9000 0r 9100
Fax number:
From outside Spain 0034 96 691 9354
From Spain 096 691 9354
Website: www.aena.es
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