“Andorra-La Seu airport is much more than the flights to Madrid and Palma; The one who benefits the most is Andorra, but it has companies that employ people from Alt Urgell and it is the base for the emergency and fire helicopter.” These are the words of Josefina Lladós, president of the Consell del Alt Urgell and mayor of Ribera d’Urgellet. He responds to the mayor of Vielha and vice president of the Tourist Board of the Lleida Provincial Council, Juan Antonio Serrano, who criticized the flights subsidized by Andorra and even proposed closing the airport.
Lladós believes that his statements are born from the rivalry between the Val d’Aran and Andorra. “As a Pyrenean, they hurt me, those of us who live in the Pyrenees find it difficult to make ourselves heard in the Provincial Council and in the Government and the attacks between regions do not help.”
Regarding the need for investment to which Serrano refers, he recalls that the Provincial Council has voted against extending the Pallars Sobirà road plan to the rest of the High Pyrenees, and the Aran.
The delegate of the Generalitat in the Alt Pirineu and Aran, Josep Castells, considers the airport a strategic infrastructure. And the mayor of La Seu d’Urgell, Joan Barrera, believes that Serrano speaks from the Aranese perspective, different from that of Alt Urgell. “If he does well for Andorra, he does well for us. He shares with Lladòs the idea that the airport is more than just flights to Madrid or Palma “because it provides services and generates a positive economic impact.” One in three workers at La Seu d’Urgell works in Andorra.
