Hooray for Girona !
davidjohson6 wrote: Gerona airport has historically been used for holiday charters.
No it hasn't, unless by "historically" you mean the past few years. "Historically" there were a few flights each summer and the airport was unutilised for almost half the year.
Barcelona is about 90 mins drive away and has a large airport supported by a hefty city population. One can think of Gerona airport as really a sort of overflow facility for Barcelona that happens to be near some beaches.
One can think this, but it isn't true. the beaches at Barcelona are within 2 kms of the airport; at Girona the nearest beaches are 55 kms away.
The area that's nearer to Gerona airport than Barcelona is largely rural.
Completely false. Past the farming area, and you'll find the area near Girona airport (by the way, Girona is the correct spelling) is a mass of industrial estates, light industry especially, and I usually do the drive (SALT to GRN) in 10 minutes. OTOH, the industrial area of Barcelona isn't anywhere near the airport (which is south of the city) but is north of Barcelona, about an hour's drive away.
Valencia on the other hand is a large city. Not quite as large as Barcelona, but definitely a big city none the less. It also has a large airport.
And you think Girona a small city ?
Unlike with Girona, where originating passengers are few - and thus an airline cannot get bi-directional traffic, Valencia is a commercial centre, has the tourist attractions, is on the coast, and has locally originating traffic.
The majority of SLF's using Girona are (a) tourists staying on the Costa Brava and (b) businessmen from Girona, followed by (c) from Barcelona. Hardly "few originating passengers". As for the implications that Girona doesn't have the tourist attractions - think again, better still, go there.
In sum: another posting from someone who doesn't know what he's talking about.
And my rant qualifications ? Well, I live a few kms from GRN and we use the airport on average 30 times a year. And I read Catalan newpapers and business reports.
Ryanair has been a godsend for us, injecting capital and stimulating enterprise as nothing else could have done. Sure, travelling on FR is cheap and not-so-very-cheerful, but what the heck, it's never more than three hours to anywhere in Europe from GRN, so I can stand their cattle class.
R