The Association of Air Cargo Agents (ANAMA) has expressed disappointment for the opinion expressed in recent days by the Technical Commission for the Environmental Impact Verification of the Ministry of the Environment which, by approving the 2035 Masterplan of Milan Airport Malpensa, has established that the expansion of the cargo activity of the airport can only take place inside the grounds airport and do not extend over moorland areas.

"We do not want - commented the president of ANAMA, Alessandro Albertini - enter into the merits of the opinion of the Technical Commission because this is not our task. Our role as a sector representative requires us, However, to point out that the setback to the development of the Cargo City (the cargo area in the airport hub) demonstrates a serious absence of a systemic view of the support of the development of the logistics system and trade international. Malpensa - recalled Albertini - is the first cargo airport in Italy (concentrates over 65% of cargo national, as emerges from the latest Fedespedi Economic Outlook) and the main hub for air transport in Northern Italy: it is It has been built for just over 20 years in an area that severely limits the potential for development and this has determined an advantage of the hubs and logistics systems of the North Europe (today more than 30% of Italian goods by air part or arrives in our country through the airports of Northern Europe). This generates negative environmental externalities (think of traffic by road to reach European airports) at the expense of ability to arrive as a country-system in the markets international with direct flights from Italy. We forget that Italy owes more than 30% of its GDP to exports and that because of Air travels more than 25% of goods by value by destination Non-EU, although it represents only 2% in volume».

"There are - added the president of ANAMA - other Strategies to partially support cargo traffic growth at Malpensa, starting from the rationalization of the spaces already available today and through the process of digitization of procedures for which we work in close synergy with the manager SEA airport. But - Albertini specified - these instruments do not will be able to make up for the impossibility of extension of the Cargo City. I would like to remember, in fact, that already in December 2021 at the height of the post-pandemic traffic boom, at Malpensa there have been very serious problems of congestion. We therefore call on politicians and the relevant institutions to work on a plan to support the growth strategies of Italian companies to export our production by air with efficient and sustainable systems. We hope that the National Plan Airports that Enac and the Ministry of Agriculture are working on Infrastructure and Transport can identify solutions to this problem. ANAMA is available to study solutions that As representatives of the goods travelling by air we could suggest'.

"It is important to know - Albertini clarified - that air cargo transport cannot develop into airports dedicated only to cargo since most of the cargo travels in the "bellies" of passenger planes and Therefore, it is necessary to work on coordinated growth strategies for the cargo traffic and passenger traffic. Focusing on development differentiated between Milan Malpensa, Rome Fiumicino and Brescia can to be a path, albeit fragmented. Today we see in Airports of Rome (ADR) an interlocutor attentive to cargo and this availability deserves to be deepened in a All-round reflection on the future of air cargo that today it becomes a duty."