Ecologists in Action warned this Tuesday of the "serious impacts" of the airport expansions planned by Aena, one of them in Lanzarote, and demanded their paralysis, as well as sustainable measures such as the limitation of operations and the elimination of domestic routes with a rail alternative of up to four hours.
The organization has launched a campaign against airport expansions on the occasion of the General Shareholders' Meeting of Aena, which will be held tomorrow Wednesday, and has denounced the manager's intention to expand 13 of its facilities, as stated in its Strategic Plan 2022-2026.
Tenerife North, Tenerife South, Lanzarote and Madrid already have an expansion project, while Barcelona, Málaga, Melilla, Valencia, Alicante, Santander, Bilbao, Menorca and Ibiza are in the functional design phase.
Ecologists has denounced the "climatic impacts" of these expansions, which would mean "an exponential increase in emissions" -up to 35% in the case of Madrid-, as well as their effects on ecosystems and the surrounding fauna, with noise, pollution and collisions with birds.
Also the damage to health, since air transport is an "important source of ultrafine particles, soot and noise": "Numerous studies have shown how the population near airports is more likely to suffer from cardiovascular diseases, hearing impairment, sleep disturbances or deterioration of cognitive performance," he says.
In addition, the organization points out that "they are speculative projects against the general interest", which "fundamentally favor construction companies and banks" and "Aena's private shareholders (49%)", and contribute to mass tourism.
For all these reasons, it demands to paralyze the expansions or interventions that are aimed at increasing the number of movements and to establish a limit to the operations, as in other airports of the European Union.
It also requests a decreasing limit on emissions for the air transport sector in Spain "with the aim of reducing both the supply and demand for flights", and eliminate domestic routes with a rail alternative of up to four hours, without allowing operators to cover the slots released with other flights.
It also calls for a resizing plan for Aena that includes the closure of deficit airports, fiscal measures such as a tax on kerosene, a tax on frequent flights and VAT at 21% for national and international tickets and including flights that depart and enter the European Economic Area in the EU emissions trading scheme.
"Increasing airport capacity to continue feeding the mass tourism model will contribute to worsening the social, environmental and economic problems that this transport and tourism policy, which is contrary to the general interest and mainly benefits some large companies, such as Aena, is already causing," denounced the coordinator of Sustainable Mobility of Ecologists, Pablo Muñoz.