Alicante Airport, originally named El Altet, is the main airport for the Province of Alicante and the Region of Murcia in Spain. It is located within the municipality of Elche, its facilities lying just 10 km southwest of Alicante. It is the busiest airport in the Valencian community. El Altet 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 where it was built. The first commercial flight that landed in the airport was Convair Metropolitan by Aviaco. Iberia established a regular connections Alicante-Madrid and Alicante-Barcelona since November 1969. In early 1970s passengers' traffic reached 1 million, which prompted a construction of a new passenger terminal. In later 1970s the runway was extended to three kilometres.