The fate of the Airport “Arlotta” of Grottaglie(Taranto) has always been controversial, suspended between the tourist vocation of a territory in the process of expansion and the needs of a commercial and industrial area which, even today, is a logistics hub essential to the activity of the entire Mediterranean basin.

This indecision has led the airport to be substantially unused, waiting for a political decision that can no longer be postponed.

The answer, loud and clear, has finally arrived: the Airport “Arlotta” will become the hub of the goods in the Mediterranean area!

Apulia Region, the Province of Taranto and the Municipalities affected by the intervention geographically have, in fact, signed a protocol in agreement that provides the allocation of over € 40 million for the construction of structural works and infrastructure necessary to implement the ambitious project.

The interventions, which emphasize the purely commercial vocation of the airport, will focus on the improvement of road connections with the Port of Taranto and the highway “Appian Way,” which, since ancient times, connects Apulia to Rome, but also the creation of a new railway connection and a logistics platform of significant size.

The commitment on the part of the entities concerned is to undertake the bureaucratic subsidized in order to make the hub operational by the end of 2015.

The success of the intervention is likely to distort the economic life of the territory, as the objective is, on the one hand, to make pass from the airport in the vast majority of trade in goods to and from the Mediterranean countries, and secondly, to encourage the creation and establishment of new businesses and industrial international possibilities, including the creation of a center for the cold chain.
With this choice, strongly supported by the Apulia Region, the aim is to bring back to being what the “heel of Italy” has been for thousands of years, which is the natural harbor of the Mediterranean, which, thanks to its geographical position, has always been considered a strategic hub for all the trades that took place in the “Mare Nostrum” and land area for the expansionist ambitions of the people who sailed those seas.