Valencia calls on Spanish Government to address expansion needs for Alicante and Valencia airports
It also calls for a railway connection in Alicante “after years of investment and infrastructure deficit”
The Minister of Innovation, Industry, Trade and Tourism, Marián Cano, has reiterated the “undeniable need” to launch the project for a second runway at Alicante-Elche airport, a project already planned within the infrastructure expansion plan, as well as activating the expansion of the Valencia-Manises terminal as soon as possible after the record figures posted by the Comunidad Valenciana for foreign tourism during 2024.
Cano explained that the passenger data for the Valencia and Alicante-Elche airports will be available very soon and, in addition to the rise in international tourism, it will become very evident that there is “a need to address more ambitious expansion projects for these two infrastructures which are key to the development of the Valencian economy,” adding that “we are breaking records for passengers, tourists and spending, and we need a project that reflects and accommodates the growth expected for the coming years”.
She has considered the public tender for technical assistance in drafting the 20 million euro expansion project for Alicante-Elche airport launched by AENA last Friday to be “insufficient”, and has called for a firm commitment to meet the needs of business people in the region following the studies by the Chambers of Commerce of Alicante and Valencia, which estimate the losses of delaying the works on the second runway of Alicante-Elche and the expansion of the Valencia-Manises terminal at almost 2,000 million euros per year.
The minister insisted that “we cannot ignore the infrastructure deficit being suffered by the Comunidad Valenciana, nor that the province of Alicante has been last in Spain in terms of per capita investment for several years now. And we are not going to settle for a patch when other projects are materialising, such as the expansion of El Prat airport, with an investment of 1,700 million euros and the forecast of building a third runway”.
She also urged the Spanish Government to implement a rail connection between the city of Alicante and the Alicante-Elche airport as soon as possible, something she considers to be a “historical grievance for the province and the Comunidad Valenciana, unique in all of Europe if we take into account that it is the only infrastructure of its size that does not have this type of service for the more than 17 million passengers it receives each year”.
