It could operate in 4 years, create 40,000 jobs, expand 60 destinations and take on 10 million passengers in its first decade
CASARRUBIOS DEL MONTE (TOLEDO), 9 Jan. (EUROPA PRESS) -
A delegation of businessmen from the Community of Madrid and the province of Toledo led by their employer leaders, Miguel Garrido de la Cierva (CEIM) and Javier de Antonio (Fedeto), have visited the facilities of the Casarrubios aerodrome to check its potential in its goal of becoming Madrid's second airport.
In a visit in which they were guided by Javier Ruedas, CEO of Air City Madrid Sur, the company that owns the infrastructure, the businessmen toured the facilities of an airfield strategically located on the border between the provinces of Toledo and Madrid, and they have been interested in the point on the project's path to know when the facility can become the airport that complements the Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas Airport.
After the visit, Javier Ruedas recalled in statements to Europa Press that Spain is the only modern country in whose capital there is a single airport, as is the case of Madrid-Barajas; while other European capitals present more options.
Thus, "London has six airports and Paris has four from which you can travel to more than eight hundred and six hundred destinations respectively", while Madrid is limited to one airport facility "and a much smaller number of destinations."
As has become evident during the visit, the project that Casarrubios represents presents as weapons its privileged location, just 30 kilometers from the capital of Spain, with access to high-occupancy communication routes, as it is next to the A-highway. 5.
The project has a main runway of 3,200 meters in length and a secondary runway of 1,500 meters for general or executive aviation flights, which will allow, as Ruedas has explained to businessmen.
"The potential of this second airport for Madrid is indisputable. The Community of Madrid valued it at around 2% of the region's GDP when it analyzed the study that we presented in 2018, and a total of 40,000 jobs are expected to be created. thanks to the airport infrastructure that it would entail," says the CEO.
This same assessment occurred in Castilla-La Mancha, which estimated according to data from Air City Madrid Sur that its impact could be close to the range between 8% and 10%.
And all in a public-private collaboration format "that will represent one of the projects with the greatest potential that Europe has right now," guarantees the CEO.
The premise defended by the promoting company is that there cannot be a single airport in the capital "that is closed every time there is an unforeseen event, either because a drone sneaks into the airspace as happened in 2020 or due to a snowfall like Filomena. in 2021".
"It is a question that we must address as soon as possible and to that we must add that the evolution of the airline sector in the coming years is going to be exponential due to the incorporation, mainly, of the Asian market and the creation of new airlines to connect the world from this to west through Europe," says Javier Ruedas, who recalls that Madrid has "an ideal, very important location, which from a strategic and geopolitical point of view is something that should be taken advantage of."
Already in 1978, this area was analyzed to build Madrid's second airport and all the studies produced data that certified that this location "is already consolidated aeronautically because infrastructure already exists."
"We would be talking about expanding a structure that has been operating since 1992 to turn it into Madrid's second airport. And, from a suitability perspective, I assure you that, based on all the studies we have done, there is no better alternative than this one." Wheels emphasizes.
Once the master plan is approved, the airport will be operational in the next four years. It has a forecast of ten million passengers in its first ten years, and an offer of between forty and sixty new destinations. To this we must add the creation of almost 63,000 jobs between direct, indirect and induced employment and an investment of 2.5 billion euros.
By 2041, 18.7 billion passengers are expected worldwide, a forecast that is complemented by the fact that the aeronautical fleet will be more than double the current one, the reason on which this project is based, since, as they emphasize from the entity, "Barajas and Madrid need to continue growing and be sustainable over time."
