Plans for a stunning new air terminal have been unveiled by the Government of Gibraltar, which will offer dual access both from The Rock and Spain. Work on the project is expected to commence in October with a target completion date of the end of 2008 for the terminal, and for the tunnel and approach roads in early 2009.
The facility follows the Treaty of Cordoba in September 2006, between the British, Spanish and Gibraltar governments. Under the agreement Gibraltar is treated as if it was part of the EU in many aspects.
Iberia introduced daily flights between Madrid and Gibraltar last December, followed by GB Airways, a British Airways (BA) franchise operator, earlier this month.
The new terminal is sited on the opposite (Spanish) side of the single runway to the existing building and will offer access to passengers leaving and joining without the need to enter Gibraltar proper.
Construction work will not impact on the current operations and a very smooth switch over is expected. A four-lane highway will also be constructed running under the runway. This will alleviate congestion problems associated with Winston Churchill Avenue, the main road into the colony, which actually crosses the runway.
Gibraltar”s chief minister, Peter Caruana, said: ”The current air terminal is too small, totally inadequate for Gibraltar”s needs and, as a building, well past its shelf life. Even without the Airport Agreement there would be a need to build a new one, as well as to divert traffic under the runway.
”This project will not just provide Gibraltar with a modern, state of the art Air Terminal of which we can be proud for the 21st century. It will also be a statement of Gibraltar”s prosperity, of our social and economic development as a community and of our presence in the mainstream of a modern European society. But it is more than even that. The project will make a huge, positive impact on traffic and parking decongestion in Gibraltar. From the viewpoint of international air communications, of parking facilities and of traffic management these projects represent a major investment in positioning Gibraltar for an even better future.”
The 20,000sq m terminal will straddle (at first floor level) the new roads leading to the frontier loop and to Winston Churchill Avenue, both of which will pass beneath the terminal at ground level. In this way the terminal goes right up to the frontier line.
The Cordoba Airport Agreement provides for a single air terminal and for that single air terminal to be in Gibraltar, although space will be provided for Spanish officials. The system is already working with the majority of passengers from the Iberia flights using temporary facilities, which includes a bus ride to and from the bus station in the nearby city of La L”nea.
See http://www.abtn.co.uk/BA_introduces_MadridGibraltar