El Altet airport opened on 4 May 1967, replacing the older aerodrome La Rabassa that had served Alicante since 1936. It took its name after the El Altet area (a part of Elche's countryside) where it was built. The first commercial flight that landed at the airport was Convair Metropolitan by Aviaco. In November 1969, Iberia established regular connections to Madrid and Barcelona. Historically, up until 2003, Iberia was the leading airline at the airport. With the decline of conventional airlines, low-cost EasyJet took the lead in 2004. In June 2006, Avianca commenced a weekly flight from Bogotá to Barcelona whose outbound leg included a stop in Alicante. This was the city's first transatlantic service. Avianca flew the route with a Boeing 767. In 2008, the airline ended service to Alicante after Spanish authorities granted it permission to operate the flight nonstop in both directions. In November 2007, Ryanair, the largest European low-cost airline, established a base at Alicante. It has since grown to become one of the leading carriers at the airport, and by 2011 it had increased its presence further with eleven based aircraft, 62 routes, and had carried more than 3 million passengers. In March 2011, Alicante-Elche's current terminal opened, which replaced the previous 2 terminals. The airport is located within Elche's comarca and so there had been a historical petition from Elche to include the city's name in the official name of the airport. On 12 July 2013, the name of the airport was officially changed from Aeropuerto de Alicante to Aeropuerto de Alicante–Elche with the IATA airport code (ALC) remaining unchanged. In 2015, the number of passengers increased by 5,1% to 10,574,484. The passenger traffic has increased in every year since 2000, with the exception of 2009, 2012 and 2020. By 2015 the largest number of passengers was carried by Ryanair (2,992,984), followed by EasyJet (1,285,221) and Vueling (1,093,494). Norwegian Air Shuttle (893,319) is the distant fourth. On 23 July 2016, the airport registered its busiest day of operations to date, handling 347 flights—with an average of one flight every 3 minutes—and about 58,000 passengers in a single day. In 2020, the airport recorded more than 11 million less passengers due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2021, the airport was renamed again to Aeropuerto de Alicante–Elche Miguel Hernández, to mark the 110th anniversary of the birth of Spanish poet and playwright Miguel Hernández. In 2024, it reached 18.38 million passengers, representing an increase of 16.8% compared to 2023. Ryanair currently has eighteen planes based at the airport as of summer 2025.