Alicante airport is following suit of many UK airports – implementing a charge in the departures drop off zone, which will come into effect from tomorrow – Tuesday 21st July. Up until now it has been very lax and many people awaiting the arrival of passengers have parked there for a considerable time – officially it was a 5 minute drop off zone. But be warned – no more! Entry into and out of the drop off zone at the departures level will be barrier controlled. You will pull a ticket to raise the barrier like at any multi storey car park and then park in one of the 80 marked bays.

The first 15 minutes will be free – pop the ticket into one of the pay machine – located in front of the parking bays and it will activate your ticket for exit. If you are between 15 and 30 minutes then there will be a charge of €1. However, and it is a BIG however, if you are longer than 30 minutes you will be slapped with a very hefty €18 charge to get out! The main reason for this is to discourage those that are coming to collect passengers from using this drop off zone for departing passengers and instead, to use the multi storey car park which links directly into the arrivals level. There are also number plate recognition cameras and any cars seen repeatedly, obviously doing illegal airport runs – and therefore uninsured, will be identified and prosecuted.

It has been talked about for many years, in particular by the Elche taxi drivers who have repeatedly put pressure on the Town Hall and AENA, the airport operator to take action on pirate taxi drivers. Many people still use them and do not realize the risk they are taking. Firstly, the bloke who does a cash run will NOT be insured if you are involved in an accident. He will charge between €40-50 for a drop off yet a registered insured company such as Alicante Private Transfers only charges €60, which works out at to a mere 42GBP – and they have to pay taxes, insurance and operating license fees whereas Mr Cash-in-hand pockets the money thank you very much. Also bear in mind that the registered taxi cannot then pick up passengers on the return trip so will be driving back empty.

For those arriving, there are white taxis that you can get at the airport, but they will cost more – it is better and cheaper to pre-book and the driver will be waiting for you on exit in the arrival area. Walk out at the arrivals level and you will see lines waiting.

Alternatively, pre-book a shuttle transfer – they can cost as little as €5 but bear in mind that they will take longer as there can be multiple drop offs. Book hoppa via our site and get an extra 20% OFF the price if booked until the end of this month! For a pre-booked shuttle take the lift down to minus 2 where a rep will direct you to the correct bus. If you want to take the ALSA bus, go up to floor 2 - departures. They depart every hour from 10am until 11pm - except there is NO bus at 10pm