Murcia's new Corvera Airport still underway
The construction work to build the new international airport at Corvera is still underway despite the general economic crisis that Spain is suffering and in particular the financial problems the airport's principle shareholder the construction company, Sacyr Vallehermoso seem to be experiencing will not delay the opening of the airport.
This is at least what the President of the Region of Murcia, Ramon Luis Valcarcel and the Minister for Public Works Jose Ballesta and the President of Sacyr, Luis Rivero stated during a visit to the airport construction site in Corvera earlier this week. The President of Sacyr has announced that it could possibly be putting on the market between 10 and 15% of it's shares in the airport but this does not have any relation whatsoever to the company's financial situation after news that a deal with Repsol has fallen through to a Russian company. This deal would allegedly generate enough funds to cover the company's loses in the construction sector.
After just 6 short months since construction began on the 24th of July on the 3,000 hector plot which will soon be the new international airport, the outlining shapes of the new passenger terminal and control towers can already be seen. The rough silhouette of the 3 km runway is also now just beginning to be seen.
President Valcarcel added, "This is not like the Tajo-Segura water project; the construction work on this airport has a deadline date which must be met." If this project evolves in the way that President Valcarcel believes it will then the construction work should be completed by August 2010, however this will not mean that the airport will be ready and open to the public as after the construction work has finished there will be a time period of several months where tests will have to take place before the final permissions are given to the project.
During the inspection to the site Minister of Public Works, Jose Ballesta commented that once the airport is open it will be capable of handling 16 flights per hour which is the equivalent of approximately 2,200 passengers. President Valcarcel added, "Hopefully within a very short time the airport will be operating close to 24,000 flights per year and handling more than 3 million passengers."
Costa Calida Informer, Issue 144
Date posted: 13 February 2009
