The creation of the "Mediterranean" airport of Agrigento, in Italy, is an old dream kept in the drawer. It has been back in vogue for years, but especially in recent months, even more so now that the Italian Civil Aviation Authority (Enac) and the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport (MIT) are reportedly evaluating the economic feasibility plan. Sicilian politics sees in this infrastructure an unrepeatable opportunity for economic and tourism development.

The idea has its roots in a 2005 initiative attributable to the regional council of the former president Totò Cuffaro, who issued an implementation integration to the regional transport and mobility plan (decree number 163/GAB of 17 November 2004), who thought of "the central-southern airport of Agrigento as an evolution of the demand for air transport of the airport as a tourist hub".

To support the initiative, Palazzo d'Orleans put 35 million euros on the table. However, the creation of the "Mediterraneo" airport in Agrigento sparked political controversy, which involved entrepreneurs, trade unions and the National Civil Aviation Authority (Enac) itself chaired at the time by Vito Riggio. These subjects considered the existing stopovers on the island to be sufficient.

Even today, the current president of the Sicily Region, Renato Schifani, recalled that the important thing is not to open the Agrigento airport, but to make it economically sustainable: in short, no electoral commercials. Also because the island's airport network has numerous infrastructures: Catania, Palermo, Comiso, Pantelleria, Lampedusa and Trapani, Agrigento's would be the seventh. It still remains to be understood where the work will be built: in the past there has been talk of the Racalmuto plain and that of Licata. Before that, Enac and MIT will evaluate the economic sustainability of the project.

On the subject, see also the article published by AVIONEWS.