Portimão council claims to be facing a €70,000 per year charge from the local GNR for airport security at the Alvor aerodrome.
The row broke out earlier this week as those airports on the new AeroVIP Portimão to Bragança airlink have been sent bills from their local GNR offices for security duties carried out when flights take off and land.
The Secretary of State for Internal Affairs, Jorge Gomes, has reminded those councils that have been sent invoices that the responsibility of security at aerodromes is theirs as they own the sites.
Jorge Gomes stressed that he has analysed the letter of the law to see who is responsible and concluded that the aerodrome owners must pay as the legislation states that the owner is obliged to ensure the safety of passengers and check luggage.
Gomes said that the ministries of both Internal Affairs and Infrastructure will start talks to find a solution between all those concerned on the route that takes in Bragança, Vila Real, Viseu, Cascais and Portimão.
The mayors have refused point blank to pay the invoices, especially as Bragança council pointed out that it was never sent a bill when the previous AeroVIP service used the aerodrome up to three years ago, a claim dismissed by the secretary of state as a teminological inexactitude.
Gomes explained that in this day and age there has to be enhanced security at all airports due to the threat of terrorist attack. The GNR must be there when flights land and take off as they have some mysterious sounding ‘specific equipment’ and must check the passenger(s) in and out.
The manpower and associated costs has led the GNR to issue bills of €153.18 per flight. At the end of the year the council reckons their indebtedness will be around €70,000.
The Secretary of State is a little annoyed that this whole subject is in the media, probably as it makes it look like the project was not fully thought through.
Gomes said that what is needed is that everyone involved in the new air route needs to clarify how the GNR service is provided and paid for. He then tried to blame the previous government but promised a quick solution and said of the invoices, "someone's going to pay."
"Either the price is to drop or the bill will be split, there is no set solution, we will talk and we will certainly get to a solution that will always benefit the customer," said Gomes, baffled as much by the economics as the potential solutions.
The air service has got off to a poor start and the mayors on its route certainly resent having to pay for full security for the handful of passengers using the route.
The councils are not benefitting by being part of what they already see as being a controversial, uneconomic and costly project that the taxpayer is subsidising to a maximum of €7.8 million over three years.
The AeroVIP Bragança to Portimão service opened a month ago and has reported an average of 5.5 passengers per trip, an occupancy rate of around 30% for the one 18-seater aeroplane.
As reader ‘Tomsett’ noted after an earlier algarvedailynews item,
“Nobody seems to ask the question, why are we paying €2,500 per day per leg to carry one person if we are lucky.
"The Portimão - Cascais leg has been open for a month now and the count of actual paying passengers is approximately 15. Over the whole month, an income of about €1,500 max and outgoings of approx. €75k.”
