Local politicians try to recover momentum

Published: 5/12/2000

In an effort to prevent the dismissal of a plan to build a large hub airport in the South Moravian city of Brno in the Czech Republic, the local branch of the Social Democrat party has made presentations to the Czech Environment Minister Milos Kuzvaert urging that he consider the development. The Social Democrats argue that the economic benefits case for the development has not been made and the focus has been unduly weighted in favour of the environmental arguments. With no real presentation about the possibility of the project being viable and beneficial to the city economically. Under the proposal the building of the airport would require a considerable amount of land close to the city to accommodate over 20m passengers a year. The other political parties in the city opposed the plan. The existing airport has had its own share of problems over the last couple of years with a fall in passenger traffic of 20% in 1999 to 110,948.A figure which will not be helped in 2000 by the bankruptcy of Ostravo Airlines in March, which closed the airline's connections to the city, particularly the route to Prague, although CSA was planning to take over the route in early April.

Article ID: 1764