Liège Airport (LGG) announced an additional investment of €30 million into four new parking areas for large aircraft. In the wake of last month’s decision to add 20,000 square meters of space for cargo, the Belgian airport is now investing more than €50 million in cargo, as it rushes to offer a capacity alternative to the region’s overcrowded airports.
While it seems that the spat over landing slots for cargo carriers has been addressed, the incident is symptomatic of an underlying shortage of slots at nearby Amsterdam Schiphol, and other major airports in Western Europe.
“The increase in volume we have seen in 2017 shows no sign of slowing down in 2018,” said Luc Partoune, CEO of Liège Airport. “We need to anticipate this growth and speed up the development plan we had in place.”
The new parking areas will be operational in 2019. LGG is expecting a record year in 2017 with more than 700,000 tonnes handled.