12 Spanish airports now offer free WiFi

Wait, WiFi, fly: Spanish airports will soon boast free WiFi for all passengers.

The strange, expensive and sometimes downright boring world of airports has just gotten a little more pleasant today following the news that Spanish state operator AENA is to provide free WiFi across 12 of its airports – including Málaga – from this week…

The aviation authority also said that all of Spain’s 47 airports will boast free WiFi by the end of the year, easing the interminable waiting times of the 200 million passengers that pass through Spanish airports each year.

The scheme will be rolled out before the end of the week at Madrid’s Barajas airport, Barcelona El-Prat, Palma de Mallorca, Málaga-Costa del Sol, Vigo, Santiago de Compostela, La Coruña, Tenerife Norte, Tenerife Sur, Lanzarote, Fuerteventura and Las Palmas.

The service will be funded via advertising sales, so users are likely to have to give up a few bits of personal information during the login process, but that is a small price to pay for a stint online, for free, while waiting at these airports.

The service is to be offered by Eurona Telecom and will offer users the first 2 MB of data free. After that, users can upgrade to 10 MB over a 24-hour period for a one-off purchase price of €4.90. A monthly package is also available, costing €15 per month and likely to tempt frequent flyers.

In what has been a busy week for Spanish airport news, AENA also revealed that September broke the national record for the number of passengers passing through the nation’s airports. The airport operator – which is the world’s largest in terms of passengers handled – said that 21.02 million people used Spain’s 47 airports last month, up 5% on last year.

For Málaga airport, the 1.53 million people that used the airport that month represented a 3.6% increase on the same period in 2014.