Málaga-Costa del Sol Airport — Málaga, Spain

Málaga's airport functions as the main gateway to the Costa del Sol, the stretch of southern Spanish coastline that has drawn British and northern European package tourists for generations to resort towns like Marbella, Torremolinos, and Fuengirola. Sitting at 53 feet above sea level in the Andalucía region, the airport runs two runways to handle a passenger volume that ranks among the highest in Spain, driven overwhelmingly by leisure travel rather than business traffic. Málaga itself has worked in recent years to shed its reputation as merely a stopover point for coastal resorts, investing in museums and cultural attractions tied to native son Pablo Picasso and revitalizing its historic center. The airport's traffic swells dramatically each summer as charter and low-cost carriers add capacity from across the UK, Germany, Scandinavia, and beyond, then eases considerably during winter months outside the small population of retirees and long-stay visitors who winter along the coast year-round. Cargo operations remain modest here compared to the airport's passenger volume, reflecting the region's tourism-driven rather than industrial economy. For millions of northern Europeans, AGP has long been the first and last stop of their annual holiday rather than a destination in its own right.