Our newspaper (Diário dos Açores) has learned that the complementary study on extending the runway at Pico airport has already been delivered to the Azorean government.
The document is now being analyzed by technicians from the Regional Secretariat for Transport, awaiting a decision from the government, which should be announced soon.
It should be remembered that the coalition executive, following the results of the preliminary study, decided “that a study should be requested with a planimetric and altimetric definition of the runway, with various configurations/extensions of the runway, either to the west or to the east, or a combination of both, with rotation of the runway, resulting in a runway length at take-off of 2. 345.0m (TORA), allowing A321 Neo, A320 Neo, A320 Ceo, B737-900, B737-800 and B737-700 aircraft to operate without operational limitations or minimum limitations.”
“The political decision of the Government of the Azores is clear and unequivocal, in a firm commitment to the island of Pico, but it will only be possible to materialize if the proper technical conditions of the new alternatives signaled in the recent work are rigorously guaranteed, the feasibility of which must be properly and responsibly analyzed,” the government said at the time.
Berta Cabral also said extending the runway at Pico airport by another 700 meters would create more obstacles than the existing ones.
The Pico Airport Group (GAPix) disagrees with the preliminary study’s conclusions on extending the runway and claims that a detailed analysis of the document proves that the extension “is possible” and will benefit operations.
After analyzing the study, GAPix says that the data “proves that extending the runway at Pico Airport, in the archipelago and Autonomous Region of the Azores (Portugal), westwards by 690 meters is possible, with demonstrable benefits for its operation and without the need to rotate the runway axis,” the group said in a statement distributed on Wednesday, December 18.
For GAPix, “the extension of the runway at Pico Airport is technically and operationally possible, it just needs to be politically feasible,” claiming that the obstacles identified by the executive condition its operation.

in Diário dos Açores-Osvaldo Cabral, director

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