From barefoot, half-naked guys screaming around totally high running towards a police officer to an anxious couple that just couldn’t wait to get a room…
Believe me: mad things happen at this airport. However, one of the best things to do when you live in Ibiza is taking a plane from time to time to have a better perspective on the life we’ve chosen. Just to be there in the lobby, waiting for some friends to arrive or if you’re lucky, going somewhere else… The act of observing people passing by is, more than a social analysis, truly inspiring.
I’ve seen it all: faces from all over the world, confetti on the floor, friends submerged in a complete ecstasy ready to party, couples kissing and loving each other wildly… And the most creative looks when it comes to fashion. Strange but kind, smiling faces that make you want to hug everyone while saying at loud “I love you all!” because it is not you, but the spirit of Ibiza who’s talking through you.
Between love and hate, peace and chaos, there’s this powerful magnetism that has us all attached to the island, and the only way to measure this force, is jumping on a plane.
To make a brief resume, let’s put on the table the fact that Ibiza’s airport is the one that has grown the most in Spain during the last decade. Also, that more than 20% of the local population are foreigners, and the traffic in 2017 has reached almost 8 million passengers. Only 7.5 km from the centre, and perfectly connected to the most important tourist resorts, Ibiza’s airport facilities provide services to Ibiza and Formentera and are used by 95% of people entering or leaving these islands.
Considering that besides its astonishing beauty, nightlife is what attracts most of the tourists, offering the best electronic music scene in the world, and the special energy and free reputation Ibiza has gained through the years starting with the hippie movement, it’s no surprise that people behave in bizarre ways.
I couldn’t find any serious source, but it is said that Ibiza is the airport with the most missed flights in the world. Fact or not, we don’t need an investigation to prove something that we’ve all heard about. From terrible hangovers to oversleep tragedies, and crazy nights of love and hedonism that encourage people to do things they would never do otherwise, we all have a friend or a friend of a friend that had lost a flight.
Remember that couple that decided to have sex right on their seats on a flight coming from Manchester? Or that drunk passenger who missed his flight from Birmingham to Ibiza and managed to evade airport security and sneak crawling onto an empty plane before being confronted by a cleaner?
Cabin-crew members also voiced concerns, saying some flights to Ibiza had turned into “nightclubs in the sky”, and most of us experienced it sometime. But even if they can’t stop singing, kicking your seat, screaming or being total pricks on the plane, when the green hills and turquoise waters of the island appear through the window…
Everything else disappears and it just feels amazing to be back home.
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Sources: diariodeibiza.es / telegraph.co.uk / aena.es / theguardian.com / dailymail.co.uk