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CANARY ISLANDS
By Barbara Belt
It you investigate flying to La Gomera from abroad, you’re likely to suffer frustration and a sense of wasting time.Half an hour of your precious time will be spent fruitlessly scrolling the online search machines, where all the usual contenders for your money will offer you flights to “San Sebastián, La Gomera”. They don’t exist, which is just as well as there is no airport at capital San Sebastían. There is a port, where a small plane could probably land if it had to, which would certainly add drama and liven up the whole sedate ferry scene.There is, however, a delightful island airport nearby at Ala-jeró, just above Playa Santiago. Designed and built back when European coffers overflowed, our airport is the sort of jewel you might find gracing an oil-rich Arab state.This island has natural beauty, but few architectural wonders, so the airport has a role. With its innovative blend of local tosca, smoked glass, marble floors, fountains, indoor garden, tra-ditional woodwork and a main entrance door replicating the entrance to the historic Asun-ción church in San Sebastián, this is an airport well worth visit-ing. Once there, the visitor can enjoy a snack and drink in the bar there, manned, (womaned?), by the charming Amparo, fount of all knowledge.The whole place is incredibly peaceful and is unmolested by bothersome planes. There is a flurry of activity for the morning flight to Tenerife North, with plenty of time to recover before the next burst of activity for the afternoon flight. It doesn’t make any money, so on July 29, 2010, we made history as the first Spanish airport to dis-pense with air traffic control-lers (who needs ‘em?) in favour of the Airborne Flight Informa-
tion Service. AFIS leaves the land-or-not decision to pilots, having provided them with full weather and air traffic informa-tion. To date, pilots have made correct decisions, which is a comfort in these recent days of planes dropping like flies.Our airport is thus something of an expensive white elephant, albeit a very lovely one and the reasons for this are fairly obvi-ous. Flights bringing tourists from northern Europe to Ten-erife generally arrive at TF South, Reina Sofía airport. It would take doggedly deter-
mined air travellers precision planning, an hour’s drive in the wrong direction and another €70 to finish the journey to La Gomera by air via Los Rodeos, TF North. The result is that few visitors fly to La Gomera. Most come by ferry.According to Spanish airport authority AENA, “The airport of La Gomera, located in Ala-jeró, 34 kilometres from capi-tal San Sebastián, is the most modern airport in the Canary Islands. Inaugurated in 1999, it has established itself as a vital component of exterior
communication for the island’s inhabitants and tourist devel-opment in the island”.Well, this is a laudably posi-tive view, in view of the fig-ures below, which only reflect a small percentage of all visitors to the island. In 2007/8, there were more planes and, obvi-ously, more passengers. When funding dried up, flights were reduced, then stopped alto-gether. Air passengers need planes. The airport closed for a while although, fortunately, Amparo’s bar stayed open and then in 2012 Canary Fly announced it would begin oper-ating there and intended to increase the number of desti-nations. There was excitement, but its tenure was short lived,
lasting from July to October 2012. Luckily, Binter stepped into the breach caused by Canary Fly’s withdrawal, which was anyway caused by - Bin-ter. Libel laws prevent further explanation. Passenger num-bers for the last decade are as follows:
Year Passengers
2004 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30,7742005 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34,4962006 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38,8522007 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40,5692008 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41,8902009 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34,6052010 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32,4882011 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32,7132012 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19,7072013 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24,469
La Gomera was the last Canary Island to have an airport and before construction started in the mid-nineties, much discus-sion took place about where to site it. The current Fred Olsen, now 85 years old, whose family business has had interests on the island for nearly a century, had suggested a different site. I interviewed him in 1990, no mean feat given his Norwegian Howard Hughes (great wealth, publicity shy) press handle. He was charming, but fed up. “The site the authorities want to use is ridiculous. It’s on the coast. Noise will disrupt the tourism we’re trying to attract to Playa Santiago”.The Olsen company built the four star Hotel Jardín Tecina
there, followed by a golf course and the recent Pueblo Don Tomás residential area.“The airport should be away from the coast, with easier communications to the rest of the island. I’ve offered land higher up, where a runway ade-quate for direct international flights could be built. If they build it down there, it’ll be of limited use. Only small planes will use it. La Gomera doesn’t need mass tourism, but it does need a useful airport for island-ers and tourists”.Clever chaps, these Norwe-gians. Twenty-four years later, it’s been officially decreed that the one and a half km run-way is indeed too short. “It is impossible to receive char-ter flights”, reveals Cabildo chief Curbelo, who took part in the original decision-mak-ing process, having been on the scene for decades but still at the helm despite his much-publicised adventures in a Madrid ‘sauna’ and various shelved court cases. “An appli-cation has been made to mod-ify planning regulations so that the runway can be enlarged, then the island will be able to receive bigger, direct interna-tional flights. Discussions are currently taking place with Regional Government about direct flights from London this winter season”.The present runway stretches along a cliff top between two deep barrancos, providing pilots with clear incentives to take off promptly and climb fast on leaving the island. You land hoping details like brake fluid have been attended to, always supposing planes have brake fluid.The feat of civil engineering necessary to extend the runway will be a Great Project indeed and dare I say, will undoubtedly provide ample scope for the back-handers and nest-feath-ering so vital for the forward progress of island affairs.
LA GOMERA
Better late than never?
