Fuerteventura Airport

Fuerteventura Airport is the main route of entry and exit to Fuerteventura for tourism and the island’s economy.  The facilities are managed by Spanish airports and airspace, Aena. It is located 5km from Puerto del Rosario, capital of the island.  During 2007 according to Aena, 4,630,056 passengers passed through its facilities, an increase of 3.8% from 2006.
In 1940 work began on a military airfield in Tefia, which opened to commercial traffic in 1959. The distance from Puerto del Rosario and the increase of commercial flights, led to the authorities seeking locations for a new airport.  In 1962 facilities were closed Tefia and instead they began to use the monopolies, 5 kilometers from the capital.

The growth of the population of the island and the location of the plant led to finding a new location for the airport.  It was finally located in the scrub, which would be inaugurated in 1964. A Fokker F27 flying between Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (LPA) to Fuerteventura (FUE) and bound to Lanzarote (ACE) was the first plane to land at the new airport on the island.
In 1973 they introduced international flights from Fuerteventura, flights would increase year by year, until in 1992 a complete renovation of the facilities was necessary. By 1994 they began the expansion work which included a new passenger terminal, expansion of the aircraft apron, a power plant and new access road.

By 2001 the old airport terminal in Fuerteventura was now demolished and became notorious for becoming a center for immigrants. The condition of facilities, the means to monitor them, overcrowding, lack of communication with the outside and its sanitation where people were confined, provoked more protests from various groups. Human Rights Watch went on to say that the dire conditions of detention had taken emergency proportions.

Detail of one of the gateways to the terminal

The current passenger terminal has 34 check-in counters numbered from 0 to 33 (the latter dedicated to special equipment: windsurfing boards; strollers; animal cages etc) and 10 gates, some with facilities for passport control.

The terminal has 5 gateways or fingers, one for each two doors. In the arrivals area there are 8 tapes installed for baggage reclaim, dedicating the number 8 to the special baggage. According to the official website of Aena, the facilities in operation are able to serve about five million passengers (arrivals / departures) per year.

There is now in motion a plan that provides for the extension of much of the airport facilities. These extensions are installing a water treatment plant, a new cargo terminal, the new passenger terminal and the new control tower (not yet in operation).
Destinations and airlines

The airport has regular links with the islands of Tenerife and Gran Canaria, as well as Madrid in the Iberian Peninsula. The remaining connections are highly variable depending on season, as in all tourist airports.  The following airlines operate from the airport of Fuerteventura:
Air Berlin: Basel / Mulhouse, Berlin-Tegel, Berlin-Schonefeld, Cologne / Bonn, Dortmund, Dresden, Dusseldorf, Erfurt, Frankfurt, Gran Canaria, Hamburg, Lanzarote, Leipzig, Muenster, Nuremberg, Paderborn / Lippstadt, La Palma , Zurich.
Air Europa: Asturias, Bilbao, Madrid-Barajas, Paris-Orly, Santiago de Compostela.
Binter Canarias: Gran Canaria, Tenerife Norte.
Austrian Airlines: Salzburg.
Condor Airlines: Bremen, Cologne / Bonn, Dusseldorf, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Hanover, Munich, La Palma, Stuttgart, Tenerife South.
easyJet: Madrid, Liverpool, London Stansted
Eurofly: Milan-Malpensa, Verona.
Finnair: Helsinki.
Hapag Lloyd Express: Basel / Mulhouse, Bremen, Cologne / Bonn, Dusseldorf, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Hanover, Karlsruhe / Baden Baden, Memmingen, Munich, Stuttgart, Tenerife Sur, Zweibrucken.
Iberia: Madrid-Barajas.
Iberia operated by Air Nostrum regional: Sevilla.
Islas Airways: Gran Canaria, Tenerife Norte.
KLM:
operated by Transavia.com: Amsterdam Schiphol Airport.
LTU Airways: Dusseldorf, Munich.
Luxair: Luxembourg.
Meridiana: Milan-Malpensa, Bologna, Verona.
NL Luftfahrt: Salzburg, Vienna.
Ryanair: Dublin, Eindhoven, Frankfurt-Hahn, Madrid, Liverpool, Niederrhein, Shannon.
Spanair: Barcelona, Bilbao, Madrid-Barajas, Santiago de Compostela, Sevilla.