The integration of Tuscany’s two reference airports, and consequently the creation of a hub with a traffic of approximately 7.5 million passengers per year, is nearing. At the end of Tucany, the Argentinian Corporacion America group announced its acquisition of 23% of the company that manages Pisa’s “Galileo Galilei” airport, becoming its primary stockholder, and began negotiations with other partners to strengthen its position. A few days ago, the same South American group reached an agreement to acquire 33% of Aeroporto di Firenze, the company that manages the “Amerigo Vespucci” terminal, and is preparing to launch an offer on the Stock Exchange to increase its controlling quota.
Corporacio America is present in South America and Europe as a concessionary firm for airports and cargo terminals: it is currently involved in the operational and commercial management of 51 airports, as well as in cargo and refueling services. The prospective is that the Argentinian group will become the controlling partner of the two airports, and that a later time it will proceed with the integration of Pisa and Florence. This alliance would achieve the demands of the Piano nazionale degli Aeroporti [National Plan for Airports] predisposed by the Italian Ministry of Transports: according to the document, which lists the priorities and development plans for Italy’s airport system, Florence and Pisa are seen as infrastructures of “strategic national interest” for central Italy, provided that the respective management companies unite under a single company.
"The Corporacion America project – commented Enrico Rossi, President of the Region of Tuscany – is another positive example of Tuscany’s attraction of private investments. It is particularly important that this is an industrial investor specialized in the management of medium-sized airport systems, and specifically the fact that the company does not have any interests in other national airport hubs, allowing it to concentrate its investments and entrepreneurial wager in Tuscany.
Based on official traffic data made recently available, Pisa’s “Galileo Galilei” airport closed 2103 with 4.5 million passengers, entering the Italy’s top ten airports list for the first time. Florence’s “Amerigo Vespucci” registered a 7% growth compared to the previous year, reaching nearly 2 million passengers.
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