Valencia and its province will stop earning 1,780 million euros/year if, complying with an optimistic scenario forecast, its airport does not carry out an expansion. To these forecasts would be added a provincial GDP at risk valued at 1,540 million euros and a total of 28,860 jobs per year that would not be generated if the investment does not occur. The Council of Chambers of the Valencian Community presented this Tuesday an economic impact report that quantifies the opportunity cost of not undertaking a transformation of the airport infrastructure and at its side is the Valencian government, which has endorsed the claim that is now black on white.
This was explained by the president of the Generalitat Valenciana, Carlos Mazón, present at the presentation made this Tuesday noon. “We have arrived late on too many occasions and we are not in a position to fool ourselves with the dates. A normal scenario forces us to do things now,” said Mazón, who has emphasized the importance of data and “rigor.” Because the report throws up numerous cases and places them in different possible scenarios. One, that of a neutral framework, indicates that in 2030 the Manises airport will have 17.3 million passengers and in an optimistic one, up to 21.3 million. Today, with the latest figures for 2023, it is at 9.9 million. The maximum capacity of the airport is 10.5 million passengers.
The other scenario, described as “optimistic”, raises the figure to 21.3 million passengers, serving mainly foreign tourism interested in the Valencian Community. “Tourism is undoubtedly an engine of the Valencian economy; foreigners come to the province and stay in hotels. Here the ‘Valencia brand’ also has a lot of influence, there are variables exogenous to the economy itself that make tourism increase” , explained Gracia Cicuéndez, one of the authors of the report.
Likewise, the text estimates that 4 million passengers would be lost if it were not expanded. In a more optimistic prediction, they place this figure at 6.6 million euros. “The fact of losing passengers because there is no expansion means less spending, less connectivity and less competitiveness of the Valencian economy. That is why we have quantified this opportunity cost,” he also explained.
For the Chambers, the expansion is the result of the positioning that Valencia has acquired and which, he ventures, will go further. “We are not at the peak of growth, we are at the beginning of that growth and we need AENA to take into account the real needs of Valencia airport,” claimed José Vicente Morata, president of the Chambers, before a full auditorium and with a first row in which sat, in addition to Mazón, the Ministers of Innovation, Nuria Montes, and the Environment, Salomé Pradas and the mayor of València, Maria José Catalá.
The study points out that the current Airport Regulation Document (DORA) 2022-2026 places the forecasts “far below reality.” For its authors, Valencia’s infrastructure is reaching its limits and requires a review like the one presented. “We are four years ahead of the DORA forecast,” commented the author of the report.
The study has made a calculation of the passenger forecast according to the evolution of the Valencian infrastructure over the last 30 years and has applied the Input-Output methodology to calculate the economic impact at risk. In this case, the GDP of the services sector would be the most affected, at 91%, and the most impacted would be hotels and restaurants.
