The president of the Business Association of the Alentejo Litoral, Filipe Pombeiro commented that Beja is a medium to long term project and that on balance, the first three years have been positive within the existing constraints.
"Despite all the constraints, Beja airport has made its way and has been asserting itself," said Pombeiro, adding that "the movement of aircraft more than doubled from 2012 to 2013.”
Beja airport was a civil Air Base but now appears pretty much comatose with most days passing by without a flight arriving or taking off.
In a chicken and egg statement, ANA said that it will start to stimulate passenger and cargo traffic but that this will depend on the attractiveness of the Alentejo as a tourism destination, the development of agriculture in the area and the growth of tourism in the Alqueva area.
The reality is that without the charter agreement with the German insurance company that owns Vila Vita and which flies employees to the nearby Herdade dos Graus, and onward to Vila Vita Parc in the Algarve, the airport would be almost devoid of activity. This deal represented 93% of the traffic in 2012.
ANA says that it is keen to approach other tour operators, particularly aimed at niche markets and developing destinations, but in fact the operator Sunvil from the UK was the only such one that used the airport carrying just 807 passengers in 2011.
The airports operator offered an equally weak defence for its lack of commercial business income, claiming that there will be a surge when the Alqueva area comes into full agricultural production, pointing out that international logistics company UTi already has an office at Beja airport and in 2013 shipped its first load.
Under ANA’s agree strategic plan, approved by the Government earlier this month as part of the wider Strategic Plan for Transport and Infrastructure, Beja airport was largely dismissed as far as tourism development goes due the difficulties of getting airlines to use Beja airport, and it remained "best suited" for air cargo and aviation industry manufacture and aircraft maintenance."
According to its plan, ANA plans to invest €2.5 million in the airport by 2017, primarily by creating infrastructure for the development of more aircraft maintenance businesses. The Portuguese company Aeromec has announced plans to invest €14 million in a new hangar for aircraft maintenance but as for ANA developing the airport for tourism, it has no intention of doing so.
