Penta wants to open international airport in Vodochody --press
Prague- Financial group Penta Investments has decided to set up a second international airport for Prague in Vodochody, for which it wants to use the runway of aircraft producer Aero Vodochody which it bought this January, daily Mlada fronta Dnes (MfD) writes.
The airport is to launch operation in the year 2009 or 2010.
"By the end of summer, we will submit an application for environmental impact assessment," Penta spokeswoman Jana Studnickova told the daily.
Penta intends to invest "billions of crowns" into the project, she said.
Experts earlier put initial costs of the Vodochody airport's completion at Kc2.5bn. Another Kc1.3bn would be needed for potential raising of the airport's capacity.
Penta believes the airport would serve to roughly 1.5 million passengers annually; some 10 percent of current passenger numbers at the Prague-Ruzyne airport.
The Vodochody airport would be no rival to Prague-Ruzyne because it would focus on low-cost flights.
"Ruzyne is expensive for them now and, moreover, cannot offer them sufficiently attractive hours for the individual lines," Studnickova told MfD, adding that low-cost carriers would welcome lower airport charges.
People living near the Vodochody runway fear that the airport would bring more noise and higher car traffic to the area.
There will be a fight, Vodochody deputy mayor Ivan Lomnicky said but did not rule out an agreement favourable for both sides.
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