After years of failures in the air-conditioning At the La Aurora International Airport, the General Directorate of Civil Aeronautics (DGAC) installed new equipment whose maintenance is only guaranteed for two years. After that period, the institution must call a new tender or quote to hire a company to continue with that service.
The project, which represented an investment of Q38.99 million, is still in the final automation phase. According to the authorities, this stage would conclude in approximately a month and a half, after which a supervisor will verify that the system operates in optimal conditions.
José Manuel Morales, head of the Financial Department of the La Aurora International Airport (AILA)explained that the contract only contemplates two years of maintenance. Subsequently, the administration must contract that service again.
Morales indicated that the cost of the future contract will depend on the specifications that are established, such as the availability of spare parts, the frequency of maintenance and the need to have permanent personnel 24 hours a day.
“That will increase costs, but it will depend a lot on how the technical specifications for the process that is developed rise,” he said.
According to Morales, the project is in the last phase, corresponding to the automation of the system, which will allow monitoring and regulating the temperature according to the influx of passengers.
“Automation will allow us to monitor and control the air, the temperatures of the areas, so when there is a large influx of people we can raise or lower the temperature a little,” he indicated.
The company estimates to conclude this stage in a period of between one month and a month and a half. After official delivery, a supervisor must issue a report to verify that the system is operating in optimal conditions.
The authorities indicated that the new system has an approximate capacity of 1,500 tons of refrigeration to air condition the different areas of the airport.
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The general director of the DGAC, Inosente Tomás Aldecoa Casasola, stated that several areas of the airport remained for years without air conditioning due to the lack of maintenance of the previous system.
Among the spaces intervened, he mentioned the entrance area, the counters, Plaza Guatemala and the international boarding area.
“There were many areas that did not have air service. Now, as you could see, there are areas that did not have or never had,” said Aldecoa.
The official added that the terminal has about seven kilometers of pipelines and that part of the deterioration was due to the fact that for years the necessary maintenance was not carried out on the existing system.
In recent years, users and passengers have constantly reported high temperatures inside the airport due to failures in the air conditioning system.
The progress of the project occurs while the airport continues to be accused of delays in infrastructure, accumulated failures and pending works that have affected the passenger experience at the country’s main air terminal.
