Actuality
Of Antonino Marino – 20 June 2024
We’re back to talking about Catania airport and its future. And in particular the possible demolition of the Morandi Terminal. To intervene, and it is not the first time on this topic, is the Movement for Autonomy with the Catania coordinator Pina Alberghina. “A little more than a month after the deadline for the submission of offers for the open tender published by Sac for the demolition of the former Terminal Morandi passenger terminal, we cannot help but express strong doubts and perplexities regarding the future of the Vincenzo Bellini airport in Catania.
We believe that the demolition of the Morandi, a historical symbol for the city of Catania, in addition to representing a significant loss for the local cultural and architectural heritage, would entail huge costs but above all potential inconveniences for the local economy, all the more evident if we consider that the regulations tender speaks only of executive planning and implementation of demolition interventions of the terminal, leaving a uncertainty as to what the reconstruction phase is, without then considering the significant environmental impact that the demolition would have both in terms of waste generated and resources for the reconstruction of new structures”.
Pina Alberghina’s statements on the future of the airport come after the intervention of the Mpa councilors on the sidelines of the extraordinary session held last April to discuss the future of Catania airport. “The conservation, redevelopment and renovation of the terminal, already hypothesized in 2007 – continues Pina Alberghina – would not only have made it possible to remedy, if carried out in an unsuspicious timeframe, the very serious inconveniences and economic losses resulting from the fire of last July 2023, but also to give more breathing space to the growing demand for air traffic at Catania airport which, as we well know, represents one of the most important airports in Southern Italy”. “We therefore believe it is our duty, also in light of the initiatives carried out in recent days by some professional categories, to focus on the protection of a strategic infrastructure such as the Morandi Terminal with the launch of feasibility studies for the adoption of alternative solutions to demolition and above all with the direct involvement of the entire community in full compliance with the principles of transparency and participation. Moreover – concludes the Mpa coordinator – since reasons of concrete and current specific public interest are at stake, the contracting authority could well make use of the self-protection powers recognized ‘ex lege’ in this sense”.
