AIRPORT BOOM

By Humphrey Carter A new eight-million euro arrivals terminal is to be built at Palma's Son San Joan airport. The expansion project was announced yesterday by Spanish airport authority AENA which maintains that the new satellite terminal will enable Palma airport, the busiest charter airport in Spain during the summer, to ease the present pressure on the current arrivals mechanism and hall during peak periods and also handle an extra four flights per hour. The new mini-terminal will in fact be an extension of the existing arrivals hall on the ground floor of the airport and will feature two double baggage belts each designed to handle two flights simultaneously. The new extension to the south of the terminal has been designed by architect Pere Nicolau who designd the new airport building. It has been designed in such a way that it will be able to support a further five floors if necessary in the future. However, until more floors are added, the roof will boast parking for 130 vehicles. The new terminal will be linked to all the main floors of the main terminal building with easy “drop-off” and “pick-up” area access. Since the new airport was opened nearly ten years ago, it has been continually expanded in order to cope with the annual increase in the number of flights and passengers. A new inter-island and domestic flight terminal was opened recently and has successfully made catching such flights quick and easy while part of the old Terminal A has also been brought back into operation. More recently, the main departure area was redesigned in order to increase the number of security control points to ease the flow of passenger traffic through the terminal. In fact, since the 240 million euro airport was opened in April 1997, the same amount has been spent on improvements and expansion. However, despite the millions invested over the past decade, the biggest complaint is still the long distances passengers still have to walk.