Traffic through Daniel Oduber International Airport shows little sign of slowing with the news this week one US carrier was to add another eight flights a week, while a Spanish airline was actively seeking to be the first European into Guanacaste.

Continental Airlines, the World’s second biggest commercial carrier, signaled it would aggressively increase its market share of the country’s Pacific Coast with plans to double the number of direct flights from the US in June and July.

Continental, which flew its first direct flight into Liberia’s Daniel Oduber International Airport a little more than two years ago, announced this week it would increase its frequency to 15 flights a week in June, and 16 in July and August.

“Our international strategy is to put flights and get passengers into places where we can make money” said Ivan Montero, Sales Manager for Continental Airlines in Costa Rica. “We began operations from our hub in Houston, but discovered that a lot of our customers were traveling from the east coast, and we have added flights from Newark.

“That also enables us to bring in European passengers via the east coast.”

Meanwhile, Air Madrid confirmed this week it was actively looking at Guanacaste as a regular destination, direct from Spain.

In fact what amounted to a trial run, Air Madrid landed an Airbus A320-200 with 250 passengers on board late last month, before flying on to San José.

Air Madrid currently operates two flights a week into San José’s Juan Santamaría Airport, but is looking to increase that to three in July.

“We are confident of the Costa Rica route,” said Barry Roberts of Intelmerc S.A., which is the General Sales Agent for Air Madrid in the country.

“We are looking at putting leisure flights into Guanacaste, but it depends upon how many seats the tour operators are prepared to sell,” Mr Roberts said last week.

“There are a lot of things we have to take into consideration before we start such a route, but we would love to have it available to us.”

Air Madrid is looking to use the giant Airbus A330 aircraft, with a capacity of 325 passengers.

Meanwhile Air Canada is also understood to be looking at a second flight each week into Liberia.

While technically not a “scheduled” service, the flight would be sold through Air Canada Vacations in conjunction with a land package, such as accommodation, transfers and car rentals.

Air Canada does not sell seats directly to the public because under the Bilateral Air Agreement, which controls the number of air routes available to foreign carriers in a country’s airspace, the Canadian carrier is allowed just three flights a week into Central America. Those are already taken.

Nearly 35,000 international passengers came through Daniel Oduber Airport in April, which was 27 per cent more than the same month in 2005.

Continental, with 12,876 passengers, controlled more than 31 per cent of the market. Delta, which pioneered direct flights into Guanacaste, flew seven flights a week carrying 8856 passengers from its hub in Atlanta. A Delta spokesman confirmed they would continue to fly daily flights direct to Liberia.

American Airlines, however, confirmed it would go from nine flights a week to five, at least until October. It will run three flights out of Miami and two out of Dallas.

US airways will operate just a single flight each week in May, but in June and July will return to three flights a week. Northwest Airlines ceased operations entirely from Minneapolis to Liberia on April 29.

But with at least 35 scheduled flights planned for July and August, and an estimated 352,000 passengers expected through the airport this year, there are many who are again questioning the facility‘s readiness for such growth.

“I must say no, this airport is not ready for further flights,” says Roberto Kopper, a former Director with Civil Aviation and now an advisor to an internal commission set up to address some of the problems facing the airport.

“We need more space in the terminal both for passengers checking in and those arriving,” Mr Kopper says. “We also need a second baggage carousel and more seats in the waiting area. The current seating is about 450 and that is not enough, particularly on a Saturday.”

Continental Airlines, which will run four operations on a Saturday, (one taking off, two landing and turning around, and a fourth landing and remaining overnight) agrees the airport facilities are inadequate.

“These problems have been on the table for a long time,” says Guillermo Vicas, Continental’s operations manager at Liberia. “The biggest problem is the area of the building itself. We are dealing with flights that are sometimes ten minutes apart, and that is a lot of people.”

Analibe Rosales, Airport Manager, defends the infrastructure, saying the facility has the capacity to handle the number of flights.

“The fact that Continental is going to add eight more flights is not a problem,” she says. “Our work will just continue as if it is the high season. It is an increase that will happen in June but we have the capacity to take it on.”