Eloise Horsfield
EXCLUSIVE by Eloise Horsfield
MALAGA Airport has been forced to deny it has been switching off the air conditioning in order to cut costs.
Businessman Jeremy Nicholls, who travels through the airport every week, says temperatures regularly reach 27C when he checks in.
“The check-in staff told me they’d turned it off to cut costs,” said Nicholls, managing director of advertising firm Copywrite in Gibraltar.
“It can be like a hothouse waiting for flights, and back in September it was totally unbearable.
“Both staff and passengers have been up in arms,” insisted the 53-year-old, originally from London.
Another passenger, Gillian Clarke, from London, insisted the airport felt ‘overly warm’ when flying back to the UK from Malaga last month.
“But I couldn’t tell if that was due to a lack of air conditioning or not,” she said.
“It was just warmer than it should have been for an international airport.”
When contacted by the Olive Press, a Malaga airport spokesman flatly denied the claims.
“It is completely untrue,” she said.
“The airport, like all public buildings, is kept at a set temperature according to regulations.
“It is not arbitrary; it’s a fixed thing,” she added.
Since publishing this article in our paper copy last week, the Olive Press has received several emails from readers saying the airport had seemed hot, and one stating that the temperature appeared to be normal.
Have you got hot and bothered at Malaga airport? Contact newsdesk@theolivepress.es
They spent so much money on the second runway etc which is hardly used and definitely not needed. Now they can’t afford the electricity bill lol. Only in Spain.
Travelled through the airport in August, September and October, each time it was hot in the airport as if no air-con was turned on, in fact quite a few people were commenting just how hot it was, usually when you walk through the airport doors the cool air hits you, now it doesn’t.. If the air-con is turned on it needs attending to as it is not working properly..
When I saw “Have you got hot and bothered at Malaga airport? Contact newsdesk@theolivepress.es“, I wrote to that email address. That was this morning.
I promptly received the following out-of-office reply from James Bryce:
“I’m now out of the office until Monday November 26. For urgent enquiries, please call 952 895 230. Alternatively, email newsdesk@theolivepress.es.”
Funnily enough, that was the email address to which I had just written.
Hi Tony. Thanks for your message. We did get your email, so thanks very much for that. For some reason the newsdesk email is pinging back James’ out-of-office reply to anyone who sends a message… We apologise and will do all we can to stop it happening in the future.
However will Jeremy and Gillian et al survive feeling ‘overly warm’ during check-in. If were ever a first world problem this would be it.
Back in September, the temperature in departures was unbearable, it was well above the official temperature as recorded on of the official monitor, eventually, the air con came on (Around 10pm) and things cooled down a little. My guess is that they have turned up the temperature setting rather than actaully turning it off.
Even the so called VIP lounge was overly hot in September. When we complained we were told the temperature was set and could not be changed. Absolutely ridiculous and frankly unacceptable,