Gerona / Girona
Before we end up with a shouting match...
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.
I believe this is discussed further by WHBM
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.
I agree that Barcelona is closer to a beach, but if people are coming to the region by plane, they will tend to choose those nearer Girona. I believe from NW Europe, Barcelona tends to get more of the city-break-focussed holidays rather than beach-focussed.
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.
Yes, there is light industry, but looking at the province as a whole, the population is 598,000 while the area is 5,910 sq km. This gives a province population density of 101 people per sq km. Perhaps the word rural was not be the best choice, but certainly compared to counties in the UK, the province as a whole would be an area of low population density - it's similiar to Shropshire. The province of Barcelona has a density of around 630 people per sq km.
My apologies for making the cultural error of using the Spanish spelling rather than Catalan spelling
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 ?
The city of Valencia has a population of 800,000 and Valencia province has a population of 2.3 million. The city of Girona has a population of 86,000 while the province has a population of 600,000
Small is a relative term, but it seems Valencia as a city has a population 9 times as large as Girona while the province has a population about 4 times as large.
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.
The implication was that Valencia as a region has more offices from large corporations (i.e. business passengers), a bigger population than Girona province and thus can provide ample locally originating traffic for airlines. Like Girona it has plenty for tourists, so has ample opportunity for inward traffic. My comment about tourist attractions in Valencia was meant to demonstrate that it's also capable of pulling in its own tourists - the beaches in Girona province alone are capable of pulling in substantial tourist traffic
In sum: another posting from someone who doesn't know what he's talking about.
My original post was intended to demonstrate that the Valencia regional Govt made absolutely the right decision not to give Ryanair all the subsidy they wanted (even if MOL wants to make a big public fuss about it) - not to denigrate Girona. I'm very sceptical as to the opinion of dicksorchard that the Valencia Govt should have given Ryanair everything they wanted.