The company Dominican Airports Century 21 (Aerodom), which manages six terminals in the country, had a 2021 where it managed to recover 80% of the air traffic that it registered in 2019 and looks optimistically at the local future of this industry, for which it is doing or will investments.
Aedorom intends to carry out soon investments on the runway of Airport Gregorio Luperón, located in Puerto Plata, in addition to the renovations he has done in the Las Américas terminal (AILA), according to the CEO of the company, Mónika Infante.
“At airport de) Puerto Plata we are going to do a major work in May, which will last 10 days in its first phase and the runway will be closed. It is a necessary work to maintain the runway, but also to increase its capacity and receive larger aircraft, ”he communicated.
During his participation in the Free Dialogue, Infante explained that in the case of AILA, the company works in the Central Atrium, a commercial plaza where the passenger, after doing his migration and security check, can walk and visit the six restaurants that It will have several new stores and a recreation area.
He announced that the work will be completed in March, although it is planned to be inaugurated the second or third week of April. He specified that this work exceeds US $ 15 million.
For him airport María Montez, located in Barahona, is working on the installation of a Boeing aircraft repair shop, whose construction would take 36 months and an investment of US$200 million is projected.
“We have an agreement with FTS Holding, which is very advanced with its contracts, both for financing and with Boeing, which would be its exclusive client. It is an extremely ambitious project. We have been operating Barahona since the year 2000 and the operations are really minimal, if not to say that there are practically none. And the truth is that it is a project that we see at a good pace”, he indicated.
For project purposes, Aerodom It has already begun the preliminary work of clearing brush and it would cover around 300 thousand square meters for hangars, a new ramp for the planes that will be taken for maintenance, a training center and another for a flight simulator, the executive said.
He said that it is probable that within the next 90 days the final executive project will be ready and during the course of this year the construction of the project will begin.
Regarding the Joaquín Balaguer air terminal, located in the community of El Higüero, in North Santo Domingo, the CEO of Aerodom maintained that it is a airport that “operates well”, with a 1,800-meter runway, although he pointed out that its expansion is a work that is pending evaluation, because some commercial flights that are carried out now could do so without restrictions.
Recovery
Aerodom operates, under concession, six airports owned by the Dominican State, which in addition to those mentioned, are Catey and Arroyo Barril, both located in Samaná. The operating concession expires in March 2030, according to Monika Infante.
Regarding the recovery of air flow, the CEO of Aeropuertos Dominicanos Siglo 21 stressed that this company had a positive year-end. She highlighted that the last three months of 2021 exceeded what was the traffic of 2019.
“The company, its traffic as a whole, reached 80% of the traffic of 2019 in 2021, which is very good when compared to the entire industry, which last year recovered 50% of the traffic. We are very close to being at the level of 2019”, he stated.
Although Aeropuertos Dominibanos Siglo 21 (Aerodom) has the María Montez terminal, located in the Barahona province, the company would be willing to evaluate its foray into the construction of an air terminal in Pedernales, with which the government intends to promote tourism development in that demarcation. “What we have expressed is that, at the time, if it is in the interest of the State that we participate in this work, we will be willing to evaluate it, through the group (Vinci). That is what we do: airports of all sizes and we are already here”, declared Mónika Infante, CEO of Aerodom. Infante explained that the Barahona airport, despite being in the same area, is a bit far from Pedernales, indicating that the road trip between the two provinces takes almost two hours. “If you want to develop a destination that is attractive, you have to guarantee that the tourist will not spend two hours on a bus after having made a long trip,” added the executive. He argued that the María Montez airport is an infrastructure that will serve throughout the transition period, highlighting that it has a three-thousand-meter runway and is operational “and when it comes time to make that investment in an airport international of that magnitude, we will be there”.
