A new airport will open in Catalonia May 12, 2009

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The opening of a new airport in Lleida, the capital of the Lleida province in Catalonia (Spain), is scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2009. The new airport will allow for the completion of a network of regional airport in the area. The Alguaire airport in Lleida will become the air gates of the Pyrenees mountains. Lleida-Alguaire airport will also be the first commercial project actively promoted by the autonomous government of Catalonia and will be completed on the basis of a governmental-private partnership. The overall amount of the investment comprises about 130 million Euros. The airport will be located 15 km from the city and will occupy a total area of 367 hectares. The length of the runway is 2500 m (with a possibility of continuation up to 3000 m), and a 61 meter width.

The management of the air traffic will be handled by a team located in the command-dispatching tower which is 42,5 meters high. It is assumed that flights to all the major cities of Spain and Europe will be services from the Lleida airport. As of this day, flight to Madrid, Seville and La Coruña, as well as in Paris, Frankfurt, London, Lisbon and Milan have been planned and approved. The first test flights are scheduled for May 2009.

Many international airline companies showed considerable interest towards the Alguaire-Lleida airport, including Irish Ryanair and German Air Berlin. By 2015 the authorities plan to finish the construction of a railroad connecting the Alguaire airport with El Prat airport in Barcelona. The expectation is that in about 10 years the yearly volume of passengers serviced at the airport in Lleida will be as much as 395 thousand people. The future airport is a considerable improvement in transformational accessibility of many tourist spots located in the Pyrenees Mountains. And we are not considering just the Catalonian resorts such as Valle de Aran, but also vacation spots in the Spanish province of Aragon, as well as Andorra.