The times for the approval of this DORA are very short, since its approval is scheduled in the Council of Ministers on September 27; Hence the urgency of including in the official planning for the next four years a sufficient amount to start the much-needed works for the Tenerife aerodrome. And if a higher item is not included in that official document, we will have to wait a four-year period to negotiate the new DORA 2026-2032.
The President of Ashotel, Jorge Marichal, believes that this issue is of utmost importance at a time when the tourism sector is taking flight after a year and a half of pandemic. “It would be a serious mistake if the next DORA does not collect more than 3.5 million euros, which will hardly be used for the drafting of the construction project for the new passenger terminal and we do not even know if it is the one that Tenerife really needs ”. affirms Marichal.
Likewise, Marichal regrets that the Tenerife Sur Airport Coordination Commission, created in May 2019 together with Gando and within the Canary Islands Airport Coordination Committee, has not met since last May, “precisely in a crucial moment for the definition of investments for the next four years ”, says the president of the hotel association.
Among its functions, this Commission “must collaborate with AENA (…) and, where appropriate, with the competent public administrations to propose to the Committee the definition of the strategy to develop in relation to the Tenerife Sur airport”, states the order of the Ministry of Promotion 601/2019.
The need for a new passenger terminal in Tenerife South, according to the needs of the destination and its importance as an airport in the AENA network, raises the support from many economic, social and political agents on the island and the Canary IslandsTherefore, Ashotel believes that the lack of sensitivity of the State towards Canarian society is not justified in any way.
The investments planned in the DORA 2017-2021, about to expire, only contemplated the union of both existing terminals in Tenerife South, one of them completely obsolete (it dates from 1978, the year of the airport’s inauguration), and another disabled since its construction due to different problems, as well as the adequacy of the aircraft parking apron.
Necessary investment
At the beginning of September, Ashotel asked the Government of Spain and AENA to allocate to Tenerife South part of the investment that it had initially withdrawn due to lack of social consensus from the El Prat airport in Barcelona. However, the request, which has the backing of business and political organizations in Tenerife, has not had a positive response.
Already in November 2018, AENA put out to tender the project for a new terminal for Tenerife Sur for a total amount of 62.4 million euros without previously making it known to public institutions, businessmen or civil society, a circumstance that Ashotel denounced before the public opinion and that revealed the “null sensitivity” of the public entity with the island.
Jorge Marichal recalls that “AENA already made a mistake in a previous project in Tenerife South, that of the satellite terminal, which was finally found to be useless and, in fact, is in disuse”, which is why he insists that ” it is necessary to agree with the island what infrastructure we need here ”.
Tenerife Sur is a highly profitable infrastructure, but punished in state budgets. Ashotel has been claiming for years a decent terminal for Tenerife’s main airport in passenger volume, with 11.1 million passengers in 2019, according to data from AENA itself.
