The council Y AENA announced yesterday, after two years of negotiations, an agreement for a “complete reconfiguration” of the South airport terminal, which includes the drafting of the project for the main building and other complementary actions for an amount of eight million euros.
The consensus, announced by the president of the Cabildo, Pedro Martín, and the executive director and general director of airports of AENA, Javier Marín, during a meeting with economic and social agents of the Island, will facilitate the presentation of architecture and engineering studies of “first level”.
The projects that are presented must contemplate larger areas for boarding, improvements in the baggage claim area, accesses, parking, merchandise and on the runway itself, as well as more comfortable spaces for the stay of passengers. But, above all, the companies that choose to win the contest must opt for an “absolutely unique” design, according to what Pedro Martín told this newspaper, “since it is not about doing one more work, but completely reconfiguring the entire building ”.
The island president described the agreement with AENA as “magnificent” because the investment for the drafting of the project, which almost triples what was initially planned, “gives an idea of the scope of the work to be carried out and that it will correspond to what is needed Tenerife for the next 30 years”. Martín stressed that next month AENA will begin the procedures to convene the contest and valued the commitment of the national entity so that, once the projects are presented, it continues working with the Cabildo in choosing the best proposal. “Investment will come right after,” he explained.
Both parties have agreed to rule out an auction procedure (to prevent the company that offers the project with the lowest economic level from taking over the work) and to raise the score of the designs that prioritize a better functional development of the airport through a constructive proposal of “singular and level” integration. In addition, Martín stressed that “the final amount of the investment will be set by the project itself, without setting a specific limit of money.”
The president of the Cabildo underlined “the important role played in this process by both the economic and social agents of Tenerife and the mayors themselves, especially from the South, who have not stopped claiming facilities that are up to what the island needs.
Thanks to this, he indicated, “today we have a firm budget commitment to carry out an ambitious project, of quality, in which the entire building is read, making it much more functional, more comfortable, with a design of as a whole and that responds to future needs”.
Of the 8 million allocated to the drafting of the project, 6.3 will be for the proposal for the remodeling of the terminal area and the remaining 1.7 will be directed to complementary actions.
The business representatives present at the meeting expressed their satisfaction. Jorge Marichal (Ashotel), congratulated the Cabildo and AENA, “for realizing the needs of the Island”; Ángela Delgado, (CEOE) celebrated that Tenerife will have “a decent entry and exit door”; José Fernando Cabrera (FAST) was convinced that “the main architectural and engineering companies in Europe” will participate in the competition, and Javier Cabrera (CEST) described the remodeling of the airport as “fundamental” “to position the tourist destination”.
Regalado: “We can no longer allow patches”
The mayor of Granadilla lamented that, “being one of the most important airports in Spain by volume of traffic, we have to wait decades every time we demand improvements”. In addition, he stressed that “we can not continue to allow patches: we are still waiting for the new terminal of 2008.”
The Minister of Transport will inaugurate the new facilities on the 25th
The Minister of Transport, Raquel Sánchez, will arrive on the island next Wednesday to inaugurate the new Tenerife South facilities, which culminate a renovation process that began in 2017.
The airport will open two new buildings that will increase its current area by more than 50%, exceeding 140,000 square meters, and will allow the check-in and boarding operational area to be doubled. This is the space known as T-2, completed years ago, which will incorporate 32 counters and six boarding gates, and the building that will link the current terminal, built in 1978, with T-2, which will add a total of 10 controls security (each one with arch and double machine) and four more accesses for passenger boarding.
The expansion will allow the capacity of the airport to be increased from the current 13 million passengers (in 2019, before the pandemic, the facilities received 11.2 million) to 16 million annual travelers, which, in the opinion of the airport entity AENA, guarantees meeting the demand in the coming years.
