LaVanguardia informed that La Seu d’Urgell airport is no longer an airfield, as of yesterday it has become a commercial airport and hence tourist, passenger, cargo or private flights may operate there from now on. This is happening five years after Alguaire started operations on January 17, 2010 also in the province of Lleida. Both airports are owned by the Government of Catalonia. Albert Batalla – mayor of Seu d’Urgell – said that both airports are compatible with each other because they are different: Alguaire is for big aircrafts and La Seu d’Urgell airport is for smaller planes, with up to forty or fifty seats.
Alguaire has a 2 km long runway and the airport in La Seu has a 1.3 Km one. Therefore, it can accept small planes only. These planes would have added value because the airport is located near the tourist area, the natural park, and the ski slopes.
For further information on the airport, its AIP is available at the Enaire’s web site. A representative from the Government of Catalonia, Ramón Farré, insisted on the fact that both airports do not compete with each other because of the different altitudes. Also, he reminded that there is a 2 hour drive distance between both. “Thomas Cook will continue to operate in Alguarie to take their British customers to Andorra” Farré said.
According to the information available in the Wikipedia airport definition, which is linked from our airport decoding list La Seu d’Urgell airport “will be the main hub for Air Andorra, an airline which starts serving Andorra on 8 January 2015″. Checking Air Andorra’s web site (a screenshot of which is shown in this piece of news) they seem to have bookings available “starting January 2015”. As soon as we have their ICAO or IATA airline code, we will insert the airline record in our airline decoding list.
Aena’s IPO fixed for February 11
A piece published by ElConfidencialDigital informed that Mariano Rajoy, the Spanish Prime Minister, who was in Andorra until yesterday, took the opportunity to use this airport on his way back from Andorra. Before that, he had landed in Alguaire on Wednesday, to go to Andorra for a meeting from there.
As well as Alguaire, La Seu d’Urgell is not included in the Aena airport net, 28% of which is expected to go public through an IPO in February. Even though Aena published a press release announcing the IPO for Feb 12, ElEconomista informed that in the end February 11 is the fixed date for such purpose.
