«Phantom extension of the runway and drop in passengers, the Abruzzo airport is becoming a dead airport».
Daniele Marinelli, regional secretary of the Democratic Party, said it in polemical tones.
The democratic exponent then continues: «Four months have passed since the farce inauguration of the construction site for the extension of the runway at the Abruzzo airport. A staging set up by the regional centre-right on 5 February during the electoral campaign, which saw Marsilio with a shovel in hand in favor of cameras in pure Istituto Luce style of the twenty-year period. Once the party was over, the saint was fooled: the construction site never started, and the four and a half months trumpeted in the Saga press release to see the work finished are almost finished without a single move. Therefore we will have to wait more time (how much?) to see the completion of the work which – it should be remembered – was financed by the centre-left regional council with the Masterplan way back in 2016. In the meantime we are in the midst of a crisis in arrivals: according to Assaeroporti data, in semester November 2023 – April 2024 there were 19,022 fewer passengers compared to the same period of the previous year. This is due to the reduction in flights to Milan Linate and Turin, but also to the inconvenient times and lower frequencies which have penalized the Pescara airport since last January. The Cna did well to point out that there is a need for a change of pace, also because only 14.4% of tourism in Abruzzo speaks of foreigners: a figure which places us in the last places among the Italian regions for arrivals from ‘abroad. Is it legitimate to expect a different attitude from the Region on this infrastructure or are we witnessing the funeral of the dead airport?”.
