Aeropuerto de Málaga-Costa del Sol (Malaga-Costa del Sol airport) is located 8 km from the city centre with excellent connections to whole of the Costa del Sol. It is one of the oldest Spanish airports as well as being one of the original locations of the first airline founded in Spain in 1919. Until 2011 it was simply known as Aeropuerto de Málaga but now its full title is Aeropuerto de Málaga-Costa del Sol to reflect its position as the regional airport. At one stage it was also called Málaga Pablo Picasso but that title has now officially been dropped even though you will see it occasionally. Whatever, it’s one and the same airport and the one you will almost certainly use if you are coming to Fuengirola. The next nearest ones are all 90 minutes or more away Granada, Gibraltar and Seville.

Most of the traffic handled by the airport is from the European Union. The United Kingdom is the destination with the highest volume of passengers, with London Gatwick heading the table, followed by Manchester and London Stansted. These British airports are followed by other European destinations: Dublín, Paris / Charles de Gaulle, Amsterdam / Schiphol, Brussels and Copenhagen. In total the airport serves more than 70 destinations in winter and even more in summer. This figure is double that of Seville.

Malaga-Costa del Sol airport also has scheduled flights to the rest of Spain, most significantly to Madrid-Barajas, Barcelona, Palma de Mallorca and Melilla.

In 2013, it handled 12.922.403 pasajeros passengers, 102.359 flight operations and 2.661 tonnes of cargo and income generated by Malaga-Costa del Sol Airport represents 27 per cent of the economy of Malaga Province. Regionally, the impact of the airport accounts for 5.5 per cent of Andalucia’s economy. You can clearly see then how important the airport is to the city, region, province and indeed the whole of Andalucia.

It has a railway station built within the terminal area with direct trains terminating in the Málaga City Centre in one direction and Fuengirola in the other. The trains run every 20 minutes. See timetable. It is also directly linked to the Spanish motorway network such that Marbella is only 45 minutes away and cities such as Granada, Seville and Córdoba are all easily accessed. Indeed Madrid is less than three hours away with the high-speed AVE.