[citation needed] After a three-year closure (from April 1974 until 8 August 1977), in which the airport underwent a major renovation that significantly expanded its facilities and had a cost of more than 1,100 million pesetas of the time; it was reopened with a new 2,400 m runway and with the technology to allow both visual and instrumental flight; the first flight after the renovation corresponded to the Iberia's DC-9 "Ciudad de Santander", that covered the Barcelona-Santander-Santiago de Compostela route.[3] Until 2003, the premises were considered underused due to the limited number of flights and their high fees, which made a shift in potential passengers to the airport of Bilbao, 100 km away.The works included the remodeling of the terminal building of 10,200 square meters, expanding new areas of departures and arrivals as well as the construction of a taxiway that can handle 22 movements per hour, and the extension of the aircraft parking platform.[6] After the implementation of the renovations referred to in the airport master plan, today it has 8 check-in desks, 3 baggage carousels in the arrivals lounge and 7 boarding gates.The line buses from ALSA also stop in the airport prior booking in the routes that connect Santander with other towns in northern Spain like Bilbao, Gijón, Oviedo or Laredo.