Alex Trelinski
REGIONAL politicians and business leader have reacted angrily to the government’s view that a second runway at Alicante-Elche airport is not a priority project.
The facility welcomed a record number of passengers last year with 15.7 million travellers while early indications based on all-time January best, suggest that 2024 will achieve another record.
The Alicante Chamber of Commerce president, Carlos Baño, warned that the airport ‘will collapse within two years’ with all of the increased traffic and predictions of 20 million people using it annually by 2026.
The Valencian president, Carlos Mazon and Alicante City have led the clamour for a second runway on those grounds, but the government has rebuffed the idea in a written response to the Partido Popular senator from Alicante, Agustin Almodobar.
The government said “It should be noted that the studies carried out indicate that in the short/medium term it is not necessary to have a second runway at the airport.”
Valencian Tourism Minister, Nuria Montes, said that ‘the government clearly has no idea that airport planning should be carried out in the short and medium term as its a project that doesn’t take a short time to carry out.”
“The new runaway is needed to be able to maintain the airport’s growth in the coming years,” she added.
Montes pointed out that Malaga has a second runway which has enabled it to expand flights from 37 to 65 an hour and cater for over 20 million passengers, while Alicante has five million fewer travellers operating on just one runway.
She blasted that once again Alicante province is being relegated to the back queue for investment despite it being a ‘tourism power’.
Alicante’s Partido Popular mayor, Luis Barcala, said it was a ‘deliberate punishment’ of Pedro Sanchez’s government to ‘any work or infrastructure that is planned for the city of Alicante or its province’.
He added that Alicante province has been at the bottom for investments in the last three General State Budgets (PGE) and described the government’s refusal to go ahead with as a second airport runway as ‘bloody’.
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