FLORENCE

The runway will be almost 4000 metres long. Target: the low cost flight market and flights for executives. Challenge to Pisa and in part to Florence.

Siena is to have a super airport

Funding of 400 million euros, with a capacity of 4 million passengers

ILARIA CIUTI

FROM A TINY AIRSTRIP to a proper airport. This is the surprise of Siena, which is planning a radical transformation for the airport of Ampugnano: from under 12,000 passengers a year to 4 million by 2020 and destinations all over the world. While Florence and Pisa continue to squabble, Siena is preparing for the big jump. The airport company has just published the public tender announcing the search for a partner willing to invest a lot of money. The international investment fund Galaxy is already prepared to spend around 400 million euros on a bigger airport than that of Florence, and perhaps than that of Pisa.

Galaxy is ready for action. The enlarged airport of Ampugnano will be aimed at low cost and business flights.

THE AIRPORT OF SIENA TAKES OFF

Galaxy offers 0.4 billion euros for 3800 metres of runway and 4 million passengers.

SIENA’S BIG STEP out of its traditional isolation via the air began last January, when the president of the Monte dei Paschi di Siena bank, Giuseppe Mussari, declared: we need a decent airport here. After 25 years of neglect of Ampugnano airstrip, in the municipality of Sovicille, the executives of Mps have to travel by air; but there is also Novartis, the big U.S. pharmaceutical multinational, situated 500 metres from Ampugnano, and ready to leave if its air links are not improved. And there are Sclavo and Whirpool. Novartis points out that it spends 3 million euros a year in flights. According to the Siena Airport Company this is a good basis, and the project takes off.

Then Galaxy turns up: the fund of the Italian, French and German saving and lending banks and of the European Investment Bank, specialising in ports and airports. Galaxy is keen to invest in Siena airport, estimating 2 million tourists a year, 40% of whom come to Siena after landing elsewhere; it has good relations with RyanAir and Easy Jet, the two major low cost companies of the moment, and knows that other companies are attracted. Vienna Airport company, RyanAir and Meridiana visit the site and judge Ampugnano as the best airport site in Europe: a plain with room to expand and which is even beautiful.

The deal is struck. Galaxy announces its willingness to invest around 400 million euros. It designs two projects centred in particular around low cost flights, the speciality of Pisa, and business travel, that of Florence. Option A is minimal, involving the lengthening of the present runway to equal that of the airport of Florence. Option B, however, involves massive investment and the realignment of the runway by 30 degrees to achieve a runway of around 3800 metres. Both projects involve taxiways and all services. The shareholders of the Ampugnano company, including the public ones, are unanimous in choosing Option B: to go all out, seeing that the nature of the site allows it. However, they proceed with caution, especially after the lesson learnt from the failure of the runway parallel to the motorway at Florence. And also with the wish to proceed gradually, in agreement with the local community and with the administration of Sovicille. The idea is to first lengthen the existing runway to 2100 or 2500 metres, so as to try out the new Boeing 737, described as being less noisy and polluting than small aircraft but capable of reaching any destination, and to welcome 3 million passengers a year, the final project, involving 4 million passengers a year, to be achieved at a later date.

Galaxy is already on the tarmac. However, public tender is obligatory and the invitation to tender is open: but proponents must be willing to spend a lot and to put down cash. Bids must be presented by the end of July and projects by the end of September; the commission chosen by the shareholders at the end of last week will arrive in October. Then it’s all systems go. The aim is for a company with 60% in the hands of private shareholders, 20% to Mps and 20% owned by public shareholders. The catchment area would stretch from south Tuscany to Arezzo, Perugia and – why not? - Florence and the rest of Tuscany. As for alliances, a Maremma alliance with Grosseto is foreseen, and if the much praised Tuscany airport system is left standing at the post, the opinion of Siena appears to be: if they haven’t got off the ground yet, it’s not our fault. There remains the problem of connections, which will be by coach. However, both private companies and the Province have already pledged to strengthen the road connections, potentiating the Siena-Grosseto and the Due Mari and adding a road linking Sovicille to the Palio highway at Monteriggioni.

1) In January, the president of Mps Mussari said: we need a decent airport here.

2) Plans are being made for taxiways, ample parking space for aircraft and all services.

3) The airstrip of Ampugnano in the Municipality of Sovicille: Mps wishes to expand it.