Just as it was being, symbolically, marked the term of the works that completely transformed the civil airport terminal of the Lajes Airport, the president of the Government of the Azores was announcing the objective, for the next legislature, of enlarging the parking plate of civil aircrafts of that airport - which project is being already prepared by the ANA enterprise -, to re-formulate the loads’ terminal system and to develop places for reapir and maintenance of aircrafts and for storage of plate equipment.

It is the government answer to the needs created by a passengers' growing movement (half a million in 2007) and, in what it already concerns to the new airport terminal - the biggest civil airport terminal of the Azores and the most modern, whether in the conception of its spaces, whether in the technological pomp associated to its functions -, “one necessary work due to the new imperatives of regulation of services in the sector and a work in keeping with the qualitative dimension that we want to transmit to the Region, in its whole, and to the Terceira Island in particular”, as Carlos César affirmed.

Investment superior to 25 million euros, the new airport terminal has a total covered area of more than sixteen thousand square meters and a capacity to serve seven hundred and fifty thousand passengers in a year, having fourteen service balconies to the public for the departures, a spacious commercial gallery, eleven places for rent-a-car companies, three bars, a restaurant and many other comforts and services.

In phase of conclusion there are the works pertaining to the car parks, with 557 parking places for the departures and for the arrivals, of which 72 are meant for rent-a-car companies.

Pointing out that this investment makes part of the set of works that integrates the new airport terminals of Flores, of São Jorge, of Pico and of Graciosa, as well as the new Pico Airport, Carlos César said that these are examples of the made effort. Only in the last four years, the investment carried out in these infrastructures, including it of the new airport terminal of Lajes, exceeded 60 million euros.

“But this effort is going to continue: yesterday there was still awarded, to a partnership, the contract job of enlargement of the São Jorge Airport, for the value of 23,2 million euros, with a term of execution of 640 days. It is, undoubtedly, a very important work for the inhabitant of São Jorge, since it comes to improve the working of that airport, which has one of the tiniest runways of the Region and which presents additional difficulties of approximation due to the orography of the island”, he added.

On the other side, he announced that the tenders for the elaboration of other two projects of enlargement of the runways of Graciosa and of Corvo were already publicised and that the Regional Government and the ANA are working so that the certification of the lighting of the Flores Airport is solved and so that in the next legislature it is proceeded to the enlargement of the runway of the Horta Airport.

Recalling that, next year, the new airplanes of SATA will start arriving, he affirmed that long are the times in which the company was flying only inter-islands, it necessarily had to receive supports of the European Community to buy its airplanes, it had the air tickets much more expensive than it has today - even with the price of the cheapest fuels and with less costs of security and of airport - and it was, still, necessary to declare it in difficult economical situation to rescind the contracts with its workers.

“The workers of SATA, as I have been repeatedly affirming, can trust their future, the safety of their work posts and of the accomplishment of their rights, being that it is simultaneously a duty of the administration of the enterprise to organize it in the most convenient way to the guarantee of its success and longevity. There must not be any doubts, not on these rights or on this duty”, he affirmed.

The inauguration of the new installations of the Lajes Civil Airport Terminal was the last public ceremony over which, for own option, Carlos César presided before the elections for the Legislative Assembly of the Autonomous Region of the Azores, on the 19th of October next.