Wetherspoon’s global takeover starts at Alicante airport in Spain – Dilip Kuner gives his verdict

Dilip kuner

Olive Press

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03.03.2026

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Wetherspoon’s global takeover starts at Alicante airport in Spain – Dilip Kuner gives his verdict

WELL, it’s official. Wetherspoon, the UK’s much loved (?) haven of cheap pints and dodgy carpets, is taking over the world – and it’s starting at Alicante Airport.

If you’ve ever dreamed of sipping a pint while waiting for your Ryanair flight to Stansted at the end of a long and arduous holiday, your prayers have been answered. This is the future we deserve.

Now, I’m no stranger to the joys of a Wetherspoon pint, and I’m certainly no snob when it comes to airport food (seriously, how many of us have had a half-hearted burger at Heathrow?), but opening the first international Wetherspoon at an airport feels like some sort of fever dream.

If you can’t get the full experience of questionable pub carpets and bemused staff in a town centre, why not bring it to the concourse of a major European airport?

It’s got all the hallmarks of the Wetherspoon charm: 93 square metres of unassuming interior, an external terrace for those who like to down their ale with a view of the runway, and a menu that’s a love letter to both Britain and Spain.

Breakfasts, burgers, and – because we’re in Spain now – garlic prawns and Spanish omelettes. I guess the English breakfast isn’t quite foreign enough.

Tim Martin, the Brexit-loving man behind the empire that is now expanding into the EU, claims that the pub will be a hit with travellers.

And why wouldn’t it be? What better way to kick off your holiday or prepare for your flight back home than with a pint of lukewarm beer and a side of mild existential dread? It’s a holiday ritual, really.

After all, after digging into a full English everyday of your fortnight in Benidorm, who wouldn’t want to tuck into yet another before a flight to England – washed down with a pint of course.

But let’s get real here. This isn’t just about one Wetherspoon at Alicante – it’s the start of a global takeover.

Martin has said we can expect more of these pubs to pop up in airports around the world. I don’t know whether to laugh or be terrified.

A Wetherspoon in every airport? Is there anything more fittingly British than downing a pint while standing in a queue?

I don’t know about you, but the thought of having access to a pint of bargain lager while waiting for my flight is oddly comforting.

We don’t need five-star dining or overpriced sushi in our airport lounges. No, we need a solid Wetherspoon experience. The world has been waiting for it – and, frankly, it deserves it. Cheers to that.

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Dilip Kuner is a NCTJ-trained journalist whose first job was on the Folkestone Herald as a trainee in 1988. He worked up the ladder to be chief reporter and sub editor on the Hastings Observer and later news editor on the Bridlington Free Press. At the time of the first Gulf War he started working for the Sunday Mirror, covering news stories as diverse as Mick Jagger’s wedding to Jerry Hall (a scoop gleaned at the bar at Heathrow Airport) to massive rent rises at the ‘feudal village’ of Princess Diana’s childhood home of Althorp Park. In 1994 he decided to move to Spain with his girlfriend (now wife) and brought up three children here. He initially worked in restaurants with his father, before rejoining the media world in 2013, working in the local press before becoming a copywriter for international firms including Accenture, as well as within a well-known local marketing agency. He joined the Olive Press as a self-employed journalist during the pandemic lock-down, becoming news editor a few months later. Since then he has overseen the news desk and production of all six print editions of the Olive Press and had stories published in UK national newspapers and appeared on Sky News.

1 Comment Leave a Reply

Mark says: 28 Nov, 2025 @ 10:37 at 10:37 Should do well if they are serious about producing Spanish food, because hardly anyone else uin the rip off airport does! Log in to Reply

Should do well if they are serious about producing Spanish food, because hardly anyone else uin the rip off airport does!

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