Getting around LPA
Every one of the 45 airlines on Aena’s official list flies through the same building — Gran Canaria never grew a second terminal the way Málaga did. Two parallel runways, 03L/21R and 03R/21L, keep it open 24 hours a day, every day of the year, which Aena attributes to the islands’ climate rather than a backup strip. Aena’s own 2025 traffic report counts 15,826,553 passengers, provisional and up 4.0% on 2024, a figure that sits inside the 15-to-25-million bracket for which the Airports Council International named Gran Canaria a Best Airport in Europe. What catches most visitors off guard is the shopping: the Canary Islands sit outside the EU’s VAT area, so Aena’s refund rules treat them like a non-EU territory — even islanders can reclaim VAT on purchases made on the Spanish mainland, settling the Canary Islands’ own IGIC tax before the paperwork is approved.
