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Passengers flying from Madrid 'continue to drop'
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The latest available figures show that the number of persons who are flying from Madrid to Gibraltar continues to drop, and that the number who use the bus service to and from La Linea has now fallen to ridiculous levels.
This confirms the view of the Opposition that it costs more to transport a passenger by bus to La Linea than it costs for them to fly here from Madrid.
The statistics supplied by the Government show that only 1575 persons flew from Madrid to Gibraltar from December 2007 to February 2008. "This is the lowest quarter on record since the flights commenced in December 2006 even though it included the Christmas period when many more people would have been expected to use the service. The quarter includes the lowest number of arrivals ever in the month of January 2008 when only 343 persons flew here," says the GSLP/Liberals.
WHO WANTS THE BUS?
They add: This drop in the number of passengers is reflected in a corresponding drop in the number of people who use the bus service to La Linea. In the first quarter of this year, only 81 people used the bus to get to Gibraltar from La Linea, including a mere 10 people in the whole of February which again is the lowest on record.
In addition to this, from December 2007 to February 2008, just under 7% of passengers who arrived in Gibraltar used the bus to get to La Linea.
The Opposition is seriously concerned at the disproportionate amount of money that continues to be spent on this venture when it is clear that the demand is not there. The vast majority of passengers traveling to and from Madrid prefer to arrive at the Gibraltar air terminal and cross the frontier rather than to use the bus from La Linea.
COSTS
The cost of what the Government call ?Terminal 2? where these passengers are bused to and from was nearly ?400,000. The cost of three buses to ferry passengers between this building and the main terminal was a further ?224,000, and the operating costs for the Gibraltar airport shuttle bus is ? 2200 a month. The vast sums of money that the Government has spent and continues to spend, are not justified by the low number of people who use the service.
Shadow Minister responsible for Tourism and Civil Aviation Dr Joseph Garcia said: ?The fact that the vast majority of passengers prefer to exit in Gibraltar and cross into Spain at the moment exposes the absurdity of the euphemism that what was being done under the Cordoba Agreement was to give the advantage of advance Schengen clearance to passengers travelling to and from Spain. It is quite obvious that not even the Spaniards themselves want the advance Schengen clearance!?
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