Lleida-Alguaire airport receives first ski travellers in two years

Flights carrying skiers have returned to the Lleida-Alguaire airport two years after the last such plane touched down in northern Catalonia.

These flights are being carried out by the Polish tour operator Itaka, which through the Polish Airlines company will bring skiers to Catalonia every Friday until March 21st.

Once they arrive in Alguaire, they will travel to the Andorran slopes by bus to ski there for a week.

The return of this activity to the Lleida airport coincides with the 15th anniversary of the launch of the infrastructure.

Swedish firm Quality Travel was the last to operate winter flights in 2022, while British company Neilson did so through Thomas Cook between 2011 and 2018.

The Polish Airlines plane landed at Lleida-Alguaire airport before 10 am with a total of 144 passengers who left Warsaw early in the morning.

The skiers will spend the week in Andorra where they will ski the slopes of La Massana and Pas de la Casa. Most of them carried their equipment in the plane's hold and after unloading and collecting it in the conveyor belt area, they loaded it onto the three buses that were waiting for them at the terminal gates to take them directly to Andorra.

The tour operator explained that most of the flights will bring skiers to Andorra, but there will also be some weeks when travelers will visit different parts of Catalonia.

Lleida-Alguaire airport, which celebrates its 15th anniversary this week, is mainly dedicated to industrial and training activities, but it maintains a regular Air Nostrum route with Palma de Mallorca, and in the summer with Menorca and Ibiza.

However, the bulk of take-off and landing operations correspond to pilot training flights.

In 2024, the facility saw a total of 28,112 operations, 61% more than the previous year.